Tower of 20 Stories to Go Up on Bushwick Corner as LPC Mulls Landmarking Neighboring Homes

Work continues on the foundation for a new 20-story mixed-use tower on the corner of Linden Street and Broadway in Bushwick, while the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission is looking into creating an historic district next door to the construction site.

Behind the green construction fence at 1333 Broadway, workers were busy with a pile driver and excavator at the site when Brownstoner stopped by in November.

A new-building permit for the development, which will be one of the tallest structures in the area, was granted in December 2020 and recently renewed. Despite significant pushback from locals, with many complaints centered around the building’s height and predicted lack of affordability, the as-of-right development has been moving forward. The site being developed was formerly home to a community garden called the Secret Garden, which was founded in 1981 by late community leader Avellar G. Hansley.

1333 Broadway LLC is listed as the owner on the new-building permit, with Erik Ekstein as the managing member. Ekstein is the founder of Ekstein Development Group, which is also developing a seven-story, 88-unit building up the road at 1389 Broadway.

The new-building permit lists Leonard Fusco of GF55 Architects as the architect of record. It says there will be 107 units in the new tower. According to the plans, the building will have an exercise room, laundry room, bike parking and space for 114 cars underground. The car parking will be located under open space, rather than the building itself.

The first floor will be a residential lobby and retail space, the second will be office space and community facility offices, the third will be storage and the fourth will be offices and an outdoor terrace. Floors five through 20 will be apartments.

1333 Broadway LLC acquired the site from 1325 Broadway Holdings LLC in 2019 for $16.695 million. In 1988, the deed transferred from New York City Public Development Corp. to a company called Mr. Biggs AD Realty Corp., which may own it still, public records show.

In February last year, after the new-building plans had been approved, eagle-eyed local Alan Gamboa caught a restriction in the deed that said some of the site’s land, which was covered in trees at the time, had to remain an open space, BK Reader reported. Ekstein changed initial plans to build above-ground parking at the site and moved it underground, and said at a community meeting the developer would keep the best trees and earmark the area as a green space that will be open to local residents.

But many local residents weren’t encouraged. The meeting, held by the developers at the advice of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, devolved into a shouting match and was cut short by the developers, BK Reader reported.

Gamboa, who was active in trying to save the trees (which have since been chopped down), said the developers had “basically steamrolled” locals by not paying for a lawyer to help the community challenge aspects of the development, which legal professionals had told him the community had a right to. Locals could not afford to pay for a lawyer themselves, he said.

“I think people are sort of regarding it with a sense of weary inevitability, you know, I mean, ultimately, powerlessness we weren’t able to muster that challenge. Most of the homeowners are very longterm residents, we’re [from] working-class backgrounds, vs. the houses are now worth a lot of money, but we don’t come from a lot of money or have a lot of cash on hand to be throwing down $10,000 for a lawyer like it was nothing.”

Gamboa said he was initially opposed to the size and affordability parameters of the development, but after doing a lot of research he had been swayed to support the development of more apartments. Under the 421-a tax break program, 30 percent of the apartments in the building will be earmarked as “affordable,” with rent stabilized, income-restricted units targeted to households earning 130 percent of Area Median Income, BK Reader reported. In practice, such apartments typically rent at or above market rate.

During the community’s push to have the developer alter the new-building plans, a number of local residents reached out to Landmarks Preservation Commission, Gamboa said, calling on the agency to landmark the homes on the block. He thinks that pressure, along with the new development, was likely what spurred LPC in November to calendar homes on the block for historic district designation.

Remarks by LPC Commissioner Michael Goldblum during the hearing indicated concern about the impact of development on historic blocks: “By splitting blocks the way we do, even though there are maybe non-contributing buildings being part of it, what you do is you lock that condition in forever. Whereas you can imagine that [as] Bushwick takes off — I’m sure it has already like other places — new construction would threaten a lot of the buildings. Now obviously, it won’t threaten these townhouses, but the possibility exists that the apartment buildings at either end of the block that are not in the designation…could be destroyed, and larger buildings could be built, and by not including those areas in the unit, you lose the ability to improve the cohesiveness of the block.”

Gamboa said while he was interested in the possible designation, he has some concerns that landmarking could make getting solar panels and canopies more difficult. LPC will be holding a public hearing on the proposed designation in the coming months.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the new development at 1325 Broadway, plans are in the works to convert the two-story commercial building to seven stories with 37 apartments. The building currently houses a hardware store on the ground floor. According to the Department of Buildings permits, Solomon Equities is the building owner and Paul Matalon is a representative. The city’s Department of Finance records show the building is currently owned by Mr. Biggs AD Realty Corp. — the same firm associated with 1333 Broadway — with Anthony Adipietro as the president.

[Photos by Anna Bradley-Smith unless otherwise noted]

Related Stories

• Bushwick’s Linden Street Could Be Area’s First Historic District Following LPC Vote
• Construction of Long-Contested Affordable Housing in Broadway Triangle Poised to Begin
• Wraparound Building With Blank Middle Going Up on Broadway in Bushwick

Email tips@brownstoner.com with further comments, questions or tips. Follow Brownstoner on Twitter and Instagram, and like us on Facebook.