May new building review: Turnbridge Equities, Rabsky Group, Aview Equities
By Atticus O’Brien-Pappalardo
The combined square feet of all new building projects filed with the city’s Department of Buildings decreased last month, after spiking in April because of several significant hotel plans. The 2.3 million square feet in May was slightly lower than the monthly average of 2.6 million since the start of 2020. For the analysis, PincusCo used the total building square footage figures reported in the PW1 of new building filings. Because of this, prior reports on individual filings may differ slightly from figures here.
As with new building analyses for the last couple of months, PincusCo only looked at new building plans that were made public on the DOB NOW Open Data site during the month of May. Due to perceived delays with the New York City Department of Buildings’ new DOB NOW: Build platform, the figures may be slightly skewed. In other words, plans that were made public in June with “Filing Status Dates” in May were excluded.
The five largest plans called for 1.4 million square feet of new construction. Three of the five largest new developments were in Brooklyn, one was in Queens, and one was in the Bronx.
Four of the top five plans called for residential or mixed-use residential buildings, and the four together had a total of 335 dwelling units. The fifth project called for a warehouse.
Turnbridge Equities was responsible for the largest plans of the month. On May 3, the developer filed a permit application for construction of an 879,203-square-foot warehouse building at 950 East 149th Street in Mott Haven, in the Bronx. The property is owned by Dune Real Estate Partners, which last year paid Turnbridge $141 million for four parcels and the Friedland family’s Westrock Development $32.5 million for a fifth parcel. It is unclear if Turnbridge is developing the property for Dune.
According to the filing, the structure will be used as a five-story warehouse and commercial vehicle storage building and ADBI Design Services is listed as the architect.
Plans for the second largest building of the month came from Simon Dushinsky’s Rabsky Group, on May 14. The permit application called for the construction of an 85-foot tall, eight-story, 60-unit, 128,140-square-foot mixed-use building at 352 Wallabout Street in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The plans were the fifth filed by the developer at the site over the last few months, which was purchased for $12.8 million in 2012 from Pfizer.
The third largest plans of the month were filed on May 18 by Aview Equities. The plans called for the construction of a 90-foot tall, nine-story, 131-unit, 150,900-square-foot residential building at 23 Ocean Parkway in Kensington, Brooklyn. Gene Kaufman Architect PC is listed as the architect for the project which has an estimated job cost of $10 million.
Jing Gao filed plans for the fourth largest plans of the month on May 12. According to the plan, the filing was for a zoning review, under which all associated jobs will be subsequently filed. The plans discussed the construction of a 55-foot tall, five-story, 100-unit, 75,124-square-foot condominium at 47-11 90th Street in Elmhurst, Queens.
The fifth largest plans were filed by David Weisz on May 26. The plans called for the construction of an 83-foot tall, eight-story, 44-unit, 45,334-square-foot mixed-use building at 2177 60th Street in Kensington, Brooklyn.
The five plans came during a month in which NYC developers filed for nearly 2.4 million square feet of new construction. The total was a 25 percent decrease from the 3.1 million square feet of new construction filed for in April, which was the highest total so far this year and the fourth highest total since the start of 2020.
PincusCo looked at all new building (NB) filings of 2,000-square-feet and above. For residential buildings, the analysis covered those with four or more units, and did not include residential units in hotel (R-1) buildings.
The total number of residential units filed for in May decreased more significantly, falling 38 percent month over month from April. The 882 units was the second lowest total since the start of 2020, only greater than the 771 units filed in March of this year.