What used to be a full-block parking lot in Cypress Hills is officially turning into housing. Crews have broken ground at 570 Eldert Lane on a seven-story, roughly 196,000-square-foot affordable building that will pack in 213 apartments plus nearly 10,000 square feet of community space and on-site supportive services. Sixty-six of those units are reserved for formerly homeless New Yorkers, with the rest geared toward households earning between 40 and 80 percent of area median income.
Who is building it and who it serves
The team behind the project is a mix of private developers and community groups. Slate Property Group and Thorobird Companies are leading the development in partnership with the Bangladeshi American Community Development & Youth Services (BACDYS), with financial backing from Goldman Sachs. Design work is by Think! Architecture + Design.
The building sits on a city-owned, through-block lot running from Glenmore Avenue to Pitkin Avenue, a short walk from the Grant Avenue A train station. Plans call for an open-air corridor on the ground floor that leads to a rear courtyard, giving residents some outdoor breathing room without leaving the block. Supportive services for tenants will be run by Urban Pathways, according to New York YIMBY.
Money and timeline
The roughly $160 million price tag for 570 Eldert Lane is being covered by a stack of public and private financing. The project closed on a mix of taxable and tax-exempt bonds from the NYC Housing Development Corporation, a subordinate loan from the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and investment from Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group, according to 6sqft.
On the renter side, apartments are expected to start at $788 for some studios, with the full income-restricted range tied to that 40 to 80 percent of area median income band. Developers say construction should wrap up in 2028, with full occupancy targeted for 2029, as reported by Patch.
Design and sustainability
Early renderings show a modern, angular building made up of stacked volumes, with gray panels framing large floor-to-ceiling windows and extensive wood paneling at street level to warm up the facade. The ground floor is laid out as an open plan with central columns and a covered corridor that connects residents to the rear courtyard.
The project is designed to meet Enterprise Green Communities standards, so it will not just look contemporary, it is meant to perform that way too. Plans include on-site solar panels with battery storage, green roofs, permeable paving, and other efficiency features, according to New York YIMBY.
Community space and transit
A big chunk of the ground floor, nearly 10,000 square feet, is set aside as community space to be operated by BACDYS. The nonprofit plans to use it for culturally specific programming that serves the neighborhood’s Bangladeshi American residents, turning the building into a hub as much as a place to sleep.
Herb Regnier, executive director of BACDYS, has called the planned community center "so much more than housing." The development also includes a covered pedestrian breezeway that will give residents and neighbors a quicker, more direct shot to the Grant Avenue A train, 6sqft reports.
By replacing a full-block parking lot with housing and community space, the team behind 570 Eldert Lane is pitching the project as a transit-oriented site designed to cut down on car dependency and plug a new public resource back into the neighborhood’s street grid.
