Yesterday, YIMBY brought you news of a new building permit filing for a site in Sheepshead Bay, destined for a 30-story tower catering to the neighborhood’s burgeoning Russian population.
Now, one neighborhood over, southern Brooklyn’s other major growing immigrant group – the Chinese – are getting a tower of their own. Yesterday, a new building permit was filed for a 24-story tower at 2300 Cropsey Avenue, between Cropsey and the Belt Parkway in the Bath Beach section of Brooklyn, sometimes thought of as a part of Bensonhurst.
At 273 feet and 24 stories, the Michael Kang-designed tower will be by far the tallest new building catering towards Chinese buyers in the outer boroughs, nearly twice as tall as the medical center and hotel building that Richard Xia is developing in Flushing. It also marks the ascendency of the Chinese as the dominant ethnic force in real estate across southern Brooklyn, certainly with the largest expanse of land.
The nearly 350,000-square foot building at 2300 Cropsey will contain 170 apartments – we’re guessing condos – divided over 200,000 square of net residential space, for a roomy but modest unit size of almost 1,200 square feet. There will be 60,000 square feet of community facility space, likely marketed towards doctors, with 337 garage parking spaces and a surface lot that will hold 32 stalls.
The developer listed on the deed and building permit is Meng Hua Wang at Flushing-based W&L Group Construction, but YIMBY has also heard that Richard Lam of Success Team Realty is involved. The parcel traded for $19 million in January. The site is currently a gutted six-story building that was last used as a nursing home.
No way to treat your waterfront. Bath Beach, image from Google Maps
This piece of land happens to be liberally zoned, but there’s room for much more growth across the Belt Parkway, on land with outdated suburban and industrial zoning. The Bath Beach waterfront has a bit of warehousing, but that’s as far as it goes for industrial space. Most of the land is used for surface parking. Between 2300 Cropsey Avenue and the waterfront lies a Best Buy and its enormous parking lot.
Given the growth pressures of immigrant groups in this corner of the city, this zoning does not make sense. If large mixed-use buildings were allowed to rise, the few jobs at Best Buy and the warehouses could easily be replaced by retail and doctors offices. The waterfront could be opened to the public, and the demand for real estate among growing immigrant communities could be satiated.
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