Real Estate

Developer Eyes 'Burg CitiStorage Site Once Promised for Bushwick Inlet Park

The large plot of Williamsburg waterfront off North 10th Street — at one point planned to be made into a city park — has caught the eye of Hudson Yards developer Related Companies, Crain’s reported. The site, which is valued at roughly $250 million, is currently owned by Norman Brodsky, a Williamsburg local. Back in 2005, the…

by Hannah Frishberg

12/30/2015 4 minute 0

Bushwick Inlet Park Williamsburg Brooklyn Soccer — Soccer field at Bushwick Inlet Park. Photo by Mary Hautman

The site, which is valued at roughly $250 million, is currently owned by Norman Brodsky, a Williamsburg local.

Back in 2005, the city promised to acquire the site as part of the 28-acre Bushwick Inlet Park — to be built in exchange for overriding the local community board’s vote against the rezoning of the Williamsburg-Greenpoint waterfront. But property values rose dramatically following the rezoning, which allowed for the development of tall residential towers in the previously industrial area.

Since then, only a portion of the planned green space has been developed. The city says it can’t afford to buy the additional North 10th Street land.

Now, Related Companies is interested in the property, according to Crain’s.

But Related wouldn’t buy the land outright. Rather, they are considering teaming up with investors Midtown Equities and East End Capital to loan a substantial sum of money to Brodsky. This loan money would serve as an investment that could, in the future, be converted into ownership of the site.

If Related Companies goes through with its investment/purchase of the property, the company will be able to build almost 600,000 square feet of commercial space on the site under current zoning.

The 11-acre plot experienced a seven-alarm fire back in January, during which a CitiStorage records facility — one of two warehouses on the site — burned down. After the incident, activists and elected officials reinvigorated their demands for the city to fulfill its agreement to create a public park on the property.

But if this potential deal between Related and Broadsky is finalized, new construction will likely snuff activists’ remaining hopes for a larger park a the site.

While it may never become green space, Mayor de Blasio’s administration has just announced it plans to block residential development by blocking any attempts to rezonethe area. “The administration would never accept a rezoning here that did not have the support of the councilman and community,” de Blasio’s spokesman Wiley Norvell said this week, according to the Brooklyn Paper.