Dirt Moves on Atlantic Affordable Green Project

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BROOKLYN, NY-Locally based Fifth Avenue Committee, the City Department of Housing Preservation & Development, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, council member Letitia James and housing advocates were all in attendance Monday for the groundbreaking of Atlantic Terrace. Atlantic Terrace will house 80 cooperative units, 50% of which will be sold to low- and moderate-income families and 25% of which will be sold to middle-income families.

According to Fifth Avenue Committee, Atlantic Terrace, which sits across the street from Atlantic Yards, will be Brooklyn’s largest affordable, green residential building. A source close to the project tells GlobeSt.com that the property will be built with green materials and will be engineered to be energy efficient. The development will be a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Gold building.

Atlantic Terrace will be 10 stories high with nine residential floors and 12,000 sf of ground-floor retail on Atlantic Avenue, as well as 87 sub-grade parking spaces. It is being built in partnership with MAP Development and Line Development. The project also received funding from Citibank, the Low Income Investment Fund, New Partners for Community Revitalization, HPD and the New York State Affordable Housing Corporation through the Housing Partnership. The development contract was awarded to FAC, a not-for-profit community development organization, through HPD’s Cornerstone program which consists of a competitive bidding process conducted by the agency.

Forty of the development’s units will be affordable to residents making at or below 80% of the area median income. Another 20 of the units will be targeted toward middle-income New Yorkers who can make up to 175% of AMI. The vast majority of the units will be for families who need two- or three-bedroom units. The completion of construction is anticipated within the next two years. The building site on Atlantic Avenue between South Oxford and South Portland streets is a former gas station.

“Fifth Avenue Committee is extremely proud to be breaking ground on our largest affordable housing project in our 29-year history and providing much needed affordable, sustainable homeownership opportunities for Brooklynites of a range of incomes to enjoy,” noted Michelle de la Uz, executive director of Fifth Avenue Committee at the groundbreaking. “New York City’s greatest asset is its diversity. Atlantic Terrace helps to advance our community’s diversity by ensuring that low, moderate and middle income people can call Brooklyn home.”

“By developing vacant city-owned land over the past two decades, we have helped revitalize neighborhoods throughout Brooklyn,” said HPD commissioner Shaun Donovan. “Now that the challenge of abandonment has been met and the supply of city-owned land is nearly exhausted, we are faced with the challenge of affordability.”

Donovan explained that the city is addressing affordability through new tools in Mayor Bloomberg’s New Housing Marketplace Plan and providing more opportunities for homeownership. “By working with partners like the Fifth Avenue Committee, the city will continue to support developments like Atlantic Terrace that integrate sustainability with affordability and demonstrate that ‘green’ design isn’t just a luxury available to a few,” he added.