Real Estate Development
OUR PHILOSOPHY
We at NEBHDCo believe that smart development and management of real estate assets can significantly contribute to a community’s resurgence within a culturally and economically dynamic base. We continue to build on the strength of our core mission to preserve and create high quality
affordable housing for low, moderate and middle income families, as we deliver creative housing solutions that meet challenges and dynamics of the 21
st century.
NEWLY ACQUIRED HISTORIC COMMERCIAL PROPERTY
In early 2012, NEBHDCo was awarded through a Request-For-Proposal process led by
Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), New York State’s economic development authority, the right to acquire and re-develop a 5-story, 32,000 square-foot community facilities building in the historic Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Not unlike our Park Monroe HDFC, the property at
619 Throop Avenue had recently been foreclosed upon, so that ESDC could re-possess the property from its non-profit owner. Drawing from our real estate development and management expertise, NEHBDCo proposed a detailed strategy of rehabilitation and recapitalization to make critical energy efficiency upgrades to the building systems, bring in NEBHDCo as the owner-occupant at its new headquarters, and redesign underutilized spaces to attract new and creative commercial and retail tenancies. The project is currently in pre-development.
KEY STRATEGIES FOR FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
The impact of the global financial crisis that began in 2008 still lingers with historic numbers in foreclosures and unemployment in communities throughout the City. NEBHDCo has re-examined and re-aligned its strategic direction to better respond to the changed needs of the market place. Our approach is centered on ensuring applicability of broader policies and strategic objectives of these relationships to realities at the neighborhood level. These strategies are aligned with the City’s New Housing Marketplace plan and PLANYC 2030, and include:
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Develop mixed-uses wherever zoning regulations permit, to diversify the local economic base in keeping with smart growth principles that maximize the potential of close-knit live-work communities that are highly efficient and intrinsically “green;”
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Incorporate sustainable and green building technologies into every development project;
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Preserve affordable housing units by targeting rehabilitation opportunities as our priority;
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Expand middle-income housing in order to keep young professionals and working families from leaving Brooklyn, by designing value-add features and amenities to our development products while keeping the prices affordable;
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Pursue joint venture partnerships with for profit developers and investors to attract private capital to the community and to increase NEBHDCo’s short and long term profitability. As a developer, NEBHDCo understands the risks inherent in development deals, the need to mitigate risk and limit exposure. By working collaboratively with joint ventures partners who share in our community development vision, we believe that those risks can be minimized; and
- Utilize new and creative financing structures through joint ventures so that we may gradually reduce our dependence on public subsidy funding in developing affordable products.
PROJECTS IN THE PIPELINE
In direct alignment with these growth strategies, NEBHDCo has been developing selective alliances and partnerships to support its long-term goals. Among them are several plans for joint-ventures that will enable new construction of affordable housing for middle income households of young professionals and families with children, as well as long-term care facilities with on-site medical and support services for special-needs populations, including but not limited to, seniors and veterans. These projects, currently in active pre-development, are estimated to generate nearly $115 million combined of capital investments over the next five years. These projects exemplify the broad range of development activities that NEBHDCo is willing and able to assume, by creating and improving the housing of low to middle-income families, seniors, formerly homless families and special needs populations.