Truly Affordable Housing Rising on Broadway in Ocean Hill Will Have Colorful 'Townhouse' Look

Overlooking the elevated train tracks, a wedge-shaped building rising at the corner of Hancock and Broadway in Ocean Hill will be ringed with stores at ground level and have more than 100 genuinely affordable apartments. Surrounding a large interior courtyard, the eight-story, 108-unit building will resemble a modern row of townhouses in fun colors including citron, turquoise, and purple.

When Brownstoner passed by Wednesday, workers were busy on the upper levels and hoisting materials to what will be the seventh of eight stories. When complete, perhaps in 2024, the apartments at 1510 Broadway will be occupied by the formerly homeless as well as households earning 40 to 80 percent of Area Median Income.

With big store windows at the ground level and the row house-inspired facade design, the complex will be street and pedestrian friendly. The development’s “townhouse-scale residential facade expression” (to quote a rendering caption) includes indentations, colors, and window placement that evoke the celebrated housing type.

Designed by architect firm Gluck+, Broadway Triangle Plaza, as it will be known, is being developed by East Brooklyn Housing Development Corporation, MacQuesten Development LLC, and the Local Development Corporation of East New York, with input from Community Board 16, according to NYC’s Housing Preservation and Development.

Layouts will span studios to three-bedrooms, with shared indoor and outdoor recreational space such as a children’s playroom. A second-floor lounge for residents will open onto the 7,000 square foot landscaped central courtyard.

The building will be insulated and LEED certified. Sound-deadening windows and PTAC air conditioning units will help drown out noise from the elevated tracks.

There will be shared laundry, 65 bicycle parking spaces, and 21 below-grade parking spaces, according to East Brooklyn Housing.

Income from the stores along Broadway and Hancock — totaling 9,105 square feet — could help fund future building expenses.

The complex is part of HPD’s Extremely Low and Low-Income Affordability Program, also known as ELLA, which mandates that apartments be affordable to households earning no more than 80 percent of Area Median Income.

The property was an empty lot going back many years. Like many such long-empty lots along Broadway in Ocean Hill and Bushwick, it was once home to a handsome 19th century brick apartment building with storefronts that may have burned down in the arson fires of the 1970s.

The property shares the block with a religious organization called Healing Sanctuary in what was a 1920s auto garage at 17 Saratoga Avenue. In recent years, a building boom has filled many empty lots in the neighborhood with new condos and affordable housing.

[Photos by Cate Corcoran | Renderings by Gluck+ via East Brooklyn Housing]

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