Yitzchok Schwartz’s Pitch For Controversial Crown Heights Site

9 minutes read

A long-awaited — and hotly contested — development project near the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is finally firming up.

Developer Yitzchok Schwartz is planning roughly 300 condo units at 960 Franklin Avenue with a projected sellout of $273 million, according to an offering plan filed with the State Attorney General’s office. The Crown Heights building will span seven stories and include unit sizes ranging between one- and two-bedrooms.

Prices at the development start at just under $600,000 for a one-bedroom condo with a small terrace on the first floor. The priciest apartment is a two-bedroom unit featuring two terraces on the top floor, with an asking price of roughly $1.6 million.

Details about the project are surfacing after a years-long battle with community groups over a series of proposed developments at the site of the former Spice Factory.

In 2017, developer Bruch Eichner and his partner, Lincoln Equities, sought to rezone the parcel and build two 39-story towers, a plan that was rejected by the City Planning Commission over concerns that the structures would cast shadows over the garden. Eichner revised the plan to include a building height of only 14 stories, but the commission once again rejected it.

Spice Factory owner Zev Golombeck, who had initially agreed to sell to Eichner’s Continuum Companies and Lincoln Equities if they scored the rezoning approval, filed his own plans to build a six-story, 239-unit project in 2022, but instead sold the site to Isaac Hager and Daryl Hagler for $43 million.

Schwartz’s YS Developers then purchased the site from Hager and Hagler last May for $64 million, backed by a $42 million loan from G4 Capital Partners. The investment firm also provided $75 million in construction financing.

Under Eichner’s initial plans, the development would have added a significant number of union-built, affordable rental apartments, in addition to the market-rate units, to the neighborhood. Instead, under Schwartz’s plans, the project will yield market-rate condos asking more than $1,200 per square foot.

Last November, Eichner reached an agreement with City Council member Crystal Hudson to move forward with a project at the neighboring 962-964 Franklin Avenue. Plans for the site include 355 apartments, 106 of which will be income-restricted.