Goose Picks Up Arrow Linen Rezoning From Apex

Yitzchok Katz’s Goose Property Management has picked up a Windsor Terrace project at the center of a contentious rezoning from Andrew Esposito’s Apex Development with plans to build four 99-unit buildings on the formerly industrial lot.

Katz’s firm filed plans last week with the Department of Buildings to build four ten-story residential buildings at 441 Prospect Avenue in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, a rezoned site that has long housed the warehouse of Arrow Linen Supply Company, which provides clean uniforms, linens, towels, and aprons to restaurants and hotels in New York and New Jersey.

Apex, the previous developer, won approval from the City Council last year to rezone the site for a 250-unit residential building on the condition that 100 of those were made affordable to households making, on average, 60 percent of the area’s median income. That would mean 40 percent of the building’s units would operate at a loss, according to Esposito.

“The economics don’t work for us,” he told The Real Deal.

Now, Katz’s firm has expanded the project to over 396 units ranging from studios to two-bedroom apartments. They hope to keep the project around 100 affordable units, lowering the share to about 25 percent, but negotiations about the number of affordable units are ongoing, according to Moshe Weisberg, director of construction at Developing NY State, Goose’s sister company which is handling construction on the project.

The developer also plans to avoid New York’s 485x wage floor by dividing the project into four 99-unit towers on the lot, rather than a single 396-unit building. Under the state law, developers building 100 units or more can only qualify for a property tax abatement if they pay a construction wage of at least $40 per hour. Developers have avoided the wage requirement by building several 99-unit buildings — just under the 100-unit threshold — often right next to each other.

Construction is expected to take 18 months, Weisberg told TRD.

Arrow Linen, which was founded in Brooklyn in 1947 by Sicilian immigrant Ambroglio Magliocco, plans to move the laundry operations elsewhere.

Though the Arrow Linen facility will be partially demolished, architect Hamish Whitefield — the designer of the building — told TRD that he incorporated parts of the warehouse into his design.

The project had encountered pushback from a NIMBY group, “Housing, Not Highrises,” which vowed to support Hanif’s opponent, Maya Kornberg, if the buildings were any taller than nine stories. Hanif got Apex to lower their plans from 13 floors to 10 and won her reelection last year.

Hanif also secured an agreement with the developer to create a task force of residents and local stakeholders to “ensure neighbors have a meaningful voice as we deliver much-needed permanently affordable housing to Windsor Terrace,” she wrote in a statement to TRD.

The task force met at local Italian restaurant Giovanni’s last month to share their concerns with the developer.

“Anything that comes in new, we want to be able to understand what it’s about and what it’s going to be bringing to us and what it’s going to add to the community and the neighborhood,” Giovanni Tafuri, the restaurant’s owner, told TRD.

Goose has become a major player across Brooklyn as the developer has snapped up project after project. Katz, who leads the firm, is the son-in-law of Isaac Rabinowitz of the better-known Rabsky Group.