In March, YIMBY published an early rendering of the plans to redevelop Our Lady of Lourdes convent in Bushwick into affordable and supportive housing. Now more new building applications have been filed, and we have an updated look at two new buildings coming to the site near Broadway Junction.
The old convent sits between Bushwick Avenue, Aberdeen Street, DeSales Place and Broadway, only a block south of the Bushwick Avenue-Aberdeen Street stop on the L and just outside the piece of Ocean Hill set to be rezoned by the city later this year.
Plans filed yesterday call for an eight-story building with apartments and community facilities at 1875 Broadway. The 70-foot-tall building would have 18 apartments spread across 21,575 square feet of residential space, for an average unit of 1,200 square feet—possibly three-bedrooms. The cellar through second floors would be devoted to 7,000 square feet of community facilities.
And the Department of Buildings has just greenlighted alteration permits to expand the four-story rectory at 1 Desales Place to six stories. The revamped building will hold 58 apartments across 49,138 square feet of residential space, on top of a 1,200-square-foot community space on the ground floor. The overall interior space will quadruple, growing from 16,546 to 50,353 square feet. And a surface parking lot will have enough room for 14 cars.
The rectory expansion will essentially be a new building, shown to the right of the red-roofed, early 20th century structure at 1 DeSales. The former Our Lady of Lourdes school on Aberdeen Street—depicted as a black box in the rendering—isn’t part of the development, but the aging yellow brick building is still in use as a charter school.
The developer is Georgica Green, who recently posted this new master plan on their website. They’ve partnered with Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, the non-profit group started by former Brooklyn Democratic Party boss and state Assembly member Vito Lopez. OCV Architects will design both buildings.
The community organization has been trying to develop the convent since 2012, and they originally planned to build a five-story, 80-unit building. At the time, they told DNAinfo that half the units would be affordable three-bedrooms for families, and the other half would be supportive housing. When Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams announced new funding for the development last year, he revealed that 15% of the units would be reserved for homeless veterans.
The project is expected to cost $30 million, $500,000 of which comes from the city’s capital budget.
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