A Queens developer has plans to build hundreds of units in Brooklyn, pointing to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s housing plan for inspiration.
Queens-based Criterion Group submitted a rezoning application to the Department of City Planning for a 321-unit project at 900 Wyckoff Avenue in Bushwick, the Commercial Observer reported. An Akerman lawyer is listed as the applicant of record.
Shibber Khan’s Criterion is planning a 13-story project for the Wyckoff Avenue site, spanning 261,000 square feet. The application calls for 85 permanently affordable units, more than a quarter of the total planned, plus 19,000 square feet of commercial and retail space.
Criterion acquired the site five years ago for $4.7 million. It also bought the adjacent site around the same time at the same purchase price.
The application for the site, which is between Weirfield and Hancock streets and houses a vacant parking lot today, specifically states the project would “further the objectives of the city’s ‘Block-by-Block: The Housing Plan for a New Era,’” demonstrating how developers are taking cues from the administration’s goal of adding 200,000 affordable homes.
Criterion did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Observer.
Led by Khan, Criterion has been operating out of western Queens for nearly a quarter-century, amassing a portfolio that includes multifamily buildings, self-storage facilities, film studios, warehouses, industrial yards and truck parking facilities.
In 2022, Criterion sold the commercial unit at 31-08 Northern Boulevard to the Carlyle Group for $80 million. The firm bought the development site in 2015 from investor Joel Gluck for $40 million and built one of the biggest self-storage facilities in the city, ultimately operated by Public Storage.
Nearby the Bushwick site, Gotham Organization’s Monitor Point development in Greenpoint secured City Council approval over the summer after successful negotiations to increase the affordable housing component to 50 percent of the total units.
Council member Lincoln Restler, who previously opposed the rezoning of the MTA-owned site, championed the deal after securing commitments for senior and supportive housing, as well as funding for a nearby site slated for Bushwick Inlet Park.
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