A low-slung industrial building on Dean Street in Crown Heights is on track to become an eight-story rental building with 81 apartments, according to permits filed with the city. The site at 1027 Dean Street, sandwiched between Classon and Franklin avenues, currently holds a single-story commercial and industrial structure built in 1930, and it sits just blocks from the Franklin Avenue subway station served by the A, C, and S trains.
The permits were filed under the ownership of developer Shimon Brach, according to New York YIMBY. The proposed building would rise 92 feet and include a cellar but no accessory parking, per the outlet's report. Jay Architect & Engineering is listed as the project's architectural firm, with Yoel Rozenberg serving as architect of record, and the design calls for a concrete-based structure with 116,089 square feet of residential space alongside 17,168 square feet of manufacturing space, for a total of 133,258 square feet. No estimated completion date has been announced.
Based on the average unit scope of roughly 682 square feet, the 81 residences are most likely headed for the rental market rather than condos, the outlet reports. No demolition permits have yet been filed for the current structure at the address, according to public municipal records cited by Marketproof, which also documents the existing building's 6,360-square-foot footprint on a 13,708-square-foot parcel.
A Developer With a Growing Central Brooklyn Footprint
Brach's move on Dean Street fits a broader pattern of acquisition across the neighborhood. In May, Murray McCabe's Ground Lease REIT bought 1027 Dean Street and the adjacent 1029-33 Dean Street for $9.45 million, paying around $1,486 per square foot to seller Justin James Lee, according to Traded. That same month, Brach executed $25.19 million in Crown Heights ground leases with Montgomery Street Partners and secured $29.6 million in financing from BridgeCity Capital for a separate site at 1112 Pacific Street, as reported by PincusCo, which notes Brach's portfolio spans more than 20 development projects across Brooklyn.
Ground work at the Dean Street site is already underway. The city's Department of Buildings issued a permit on July 27 for foundation and earthwork at 1027 Dean Street under job number B01341355-I1, naming B Contractors Group LLC as the contractor, per Sinra.ai's permit tracking.
Neighboring Sites Point to a Denser Block
Dean Street is quickly becoming a corridor of mid-rise residential projects replacing former manufacturing buildings. Just next door, Castell Group and Montgomery Street Partners secured $47.4 million in construction financing in April to build a 10-story, 170-unit residential project at 1029 Dean Street and 1104 Pacific Street, expected to open in mid-2027, according to the Commercial Observer. Those contiguous parcels were reportedly acquired off-market for $25.15 million following the neighborhood's rezoning.
That rezoning is the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan, a 21-block overhaul across Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant that the New York City Council approved in May 2025. The plan is designed to enable 4,600 new housing units and more than 800,000 square feet of commercial space, replacing restrictive M1-1 industrial zoning that had governed the area since 1961. Similar filings have followed elsewhere along the corridor, including two adjacent 99-unit residential developments at 1029 and 1035 Atlantic Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, filed in June by the same Jay Architect & Engineering firm working on the Dean Street project.
Rents Climbing as New Supply Arrives
The push to convert industrial parcels into apartments comes as rents in the area keep climbing. Average rental prices in Crown Heights range between $3,600 and $4,110 per month, with one-bedroom units averaging $3,300 to $3,350 monthly, according to RentCafe. Borough-wide, the Corcoran Group's June market report found median Brooklyn rents hit a record $4,350 a month, an 8% jump year-over-year, with listings spending 30% fewer days on the market before renting.
Many of these new projects are expected to lean on New York's Real Property Tax Law Section 485-x, a state incentive enacted in 2024 and implemented in January 2025 that grants multi-decade property tax exemptions to multi-family developments that set aside 20% to 25% of units as permanently affordable housing, per guidance from the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development. The program replaced the expired 421-a tax break and is widely viewed as the mechanism shaping how many units in these new Crown Heights buildings end up priced below market rate.
The 1027 Dean Street filing follows an earlier Dean Street tower proposal Hoodline covered in April, when permits surfaced for a 12-story, 73-unit mixed-use building nearby, part of the same wave of light-industrial-to-residential conversions moving through the neighborhood.
