Bed Stuy Multi-Service Center to Gain Affordable Housing

by Kirstyn Brendlen, Brooklyn Paper

The bedraggled Bedford-Stuyvesant Multi-Service Center will be totally redeveloped into a brand-new social services center with hundreds of affordable homes in the Mamdani administration’s first public development project.

On May 7, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development and Human Resources Administration will start a public engagement process meant to gather local feedback and help shape the redevelopment.

Built in sections from 1912 to 1925, the city-owned five-story building at 1958 Fulton Street houses several community services orgs, including CAMBA HomeBase and Little Flower Children & Family Services. But it’s in need of $60 million in capital repairs, according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and has a high vacancy rate, in part because of its dire need for repairs and upgrades.

The site, dubbed “Fulton-Howard West,” includes the Multi-Service Center, the old P.S. 28 school building and attached running track on Herkimer Street, and an additional vacant city-owned plot. It was identified as a potential affordable housing site in the 2020 Bedford-Stuyvesant Housing Plan.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani — who campaigned on the promise of building 200,000 affordable units in 10 years and has moved to speed housing construction on city-owned land — said his administration is “using every tool available” to build new affordable homes.

“Fulton-Howard West shows what’s possible when we treat public land as a public good. This project will help longtime Bed Stuy residents stay in their neighborhood while creating new space for the organizations and services that communities rely on every day,” Mamdani said in a statement. “And as this process moves forward, neighbors will help shape what gets built here, from the housing to the public space to the services that will serve this community for decades to come.”

The city does not yet have details on how many units the project will include, or the level of affordability. A spokesperson for HPD said the team will discuss affordability and density during the community engagement process, and will use the community’s needs to inform the eventual Request for Proposals issued to prospective developers.

More than 27 percent of households in Bed Stuy earn less than 30 percent of the Area Median Income, according to city data, and are considered “extremely low-income.” Roughly 28 percent earn between 31 percent to 81 percent AMI.

But only 19 percent of rental units in the nabe are considered “affordable” to people earning 30 percent AMI or lower. Over half of Bed Stuy residents are considered “rent burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, and 28.3 percent pay more than 50 percent in rent.

Median gross rent in the nabe was $2,070 in 2023, according to the NYU Furman Center. Affordable rent for a two-bedroom unit at 30 percent AMI is $1,093, or $2,916 at 80 percent AMI.

“This building will not only be in Bed Stuy, it will be for Bed Stuy,” said HPD commissioner Dina Levy. “Starting today, we’ll be in the neighborhood at workshops and on the streets, engaging the community on what they want to see here. One hundred percent affordable housing on public land with a dedicated community space designed for the residents that live here — that is the investment Bed Stuy needs, and we are going to get it right.”

The engagement process will include online questionnaires, tabling events, a community workshop, and meetings with the community board and local stakeholders, according to HPD. The city will also lead a “robust” engagement process with the nonprofits and community orgs who currently work in the Multi-Services Center.

When finished, the new development will have space for the existing community groups and more, and the city has said the services offered by the current nonprofits will not be interrupted during construction.

The RFP will ensure the chosen developer “has a plan” to help the service providers move temporarily, an HPD spokesperson said. There are “several possibilities” for where services will continue.

“We are incredibly excited to be a part of this project, which will not only bring much-needed affordable housing to this city-owned site, but ensure that the wide array of services available at the MSC will continue uninterrupted during the development process,” said Department of Social Services first deputy commissioner Saratu Ghartey. “We will be working closely with all stakeholders at the MSC on a smooth transition and look forward to facilitating these critical services within this new, high-quality site.”

[Photos by Susan De Vries]

Editor’s note: A version of this story originally ran in Brooklyn Paper. Click here to see the original story.

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