Phipps files plans for 327-unit rental in Cypress Hills

Affordable housing developer and owner, Phipps Houses submitted a new building construction project for a 327-unit, 376,520 square-foot residential (R-2) building at 275 Chestnut Street in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn. The plan was filed with the New York City Department of Buildings on January 29, 2024 under job number B00972461. It calls for the construction of a 14-story building. The project is described in the filing as: construct new fourteen (14) story mix-use building as per plans filed. The architect is Dattner Architects. The applicant was Michael Wadman.

Phipps Houses bought this parcel and others for $36 million in 2015.

The property

The parcel has frontage of 206 feet and is 304 feet deep with a total lot size of 52,359 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is M1-4/R8A which allows for up to 2 times floor area ratio (FAR) for manufacturing and up to 6.02 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing.

The neighborhood

In Cypress Hills, The bulk, or 24 percent of the 8.6 million square feet of commercial built space are mixed-use buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 20 percent of the space. In sales, Cypress Hills has near average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $105.7 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 36th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Cypress Hills has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 13th highest in Brooklyn. It had 1.3 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 16 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owner of the one commercial property that spans that spans 431,248 square feet on the block.The identified owner is Phipps Houses. On the tax block, there were three new building construction projects totaling 1,183,567 square feet. The largest is a 436-unit, 408,695 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Phipps Houses and filed by Michael Wadman with plans filed December 27, 2021 and permitted December 29, 2022. The second largest is a 403-unit, 398,352 square-foot residential (R-2) building submitted by Phipps Houses and filed by Michael Wadman with plans filed January 27, 2017 and permitted July 1, 2021.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of Chestnut street, PincusCo identified three commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. One of those three items was a sale which Phipps Houses bought a development site (V1) on Chestnut Street for $13.5 million from Phipps Houses on December 29, 2022. Of those three items, two were loans above $5 million totaling $237.9 million. The most recent of the two was Phipps Houses in which borrowed $224.6 million from NYC Housing Development Corporation secured by the development site on CHESTNUT Street on December 29, 2022.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page and link to DOB NOW portal.