A Downtown Brooklyn site once poised to sprout a modest office tower will give way to something much larger, if developer Rabsky Group has its way. The Real Deal reports that the company wants to bring a 942-foot residential and office building with a 640-seat public school to the site, and will enter into the city’s land-use process in January. Politico first reported the plans.
Rabsky Group acquired the bulk of the site at Fulton Street between Rockwell Place and Hudson Avenue for for $158 million in early 2016 from Forest City Realty Trust, which had removed a seven-story office building from the site in 2013 in preparation for a residential tower that never materialized. Rabsky acquired a neighboring parcel for $68 million in 2017. Together the lots allow a tower up to 770,000 square feet as-of-right, but Rabsky’s ambitions for the site are much larger.
The development company’s proposed project would span over 1.8 million square feet and include 730,000 square feet of office space, 902 apartments, and a 640-seat public elementary school. At that, the development would become the densest development in Brooklyn, the Real Deal says. The development company has yet to file its plans with the Department of Buildings.
The development site is just down the street from Alloy Development’s 80 Flatbush, which won the approval of the City Council in September after a heated land-use review process that saw the site’s towers shrink from 986 feet to 840, and from 560 feet to 510 feet.
Rabsky’s plan would not require a residential rezoning for the site, so the project isn’t subject to city regulations requiring more affordable apartments for increased density. TRD notes that Rabsky, however, still intends to include affordable units within the development. City Council member Laurie Cumbo, who represents the portion of Downtown Brooklyn the development is within, says she will push for a larger affordable component within the development.
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