A vacant single-story schoolhouse on McDonald Avenue in Gravesend is on track to become a 10-story mixed-use building with 99 residences, after developer Joel Landau filed new construction permits for the site this week. The building would rise at 2080 McDonald Avenue, just one block south of the Kings Highway subway station served by the F train, transforming a parcel that has sat mostly dormant since its days as a parochial school or yeshiva.
Landau, working through the entity Emerald Developers, is listed as the owner behind the applications, according to New York YIMBY. The proposed structure would span 134,477 square feet, including 115,522 square feet of residential space and 18,955 square feet of community facility space, with an average unit scope of 1,166 square feet suggesting the apartments are likely to be condominiums rather than rentals. Plans also call for 27 enclosed parking spaces, a cellar, and a concrete-based structure standing 115 feet tall.
A Through Lot With Two Street Addresses
The property is a through lot, meaning it stretches between two parallel streets and carries dual frontage, sitting at the intersection of Avenue S and McDonald Avenue and also addressed as 101 Lake Street. That dual-frontage footprint is confirmed by the Brooklyn Borough President's Office, which reviewed the site during its rezoning years earlier. The existing structure being cleared for the project is a 7,500-square-foot, single-story building dating to 1931 that previously operated as a parochial school or yeshiva, per city property records. Demolition permits for that building were filed back in May, and no estimated completion date for the new tower has been announced.
Kao Hwa Lee Architects is listed as architect of record on the filings. The firm has designed other multi-family projects across the borough, including an 82-unit building at 1029 Dean Street in Crown Heights and an 11-story building at 579 Sackett Street in Gowanus, as reported by New York YIMBY.
How the Site Got Its Zoning
The McDonald Avenue lot did not start out zoned for a 10-story building. It previously underwent New York City's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, which rezoned the property from light manufacturing and low-density residential districts into a C4-4L commercial district, according to filings reviewed by the Brooklyn Borough President's Office. That rezoning was originally spearheaded not by Landau but by a separate entity, Jackson Ex 2 Avenue S LLC, before the current ownership took over the project. City zoning rules describe C4-4L districts as regional commercial zones tailored to elevated transit corridors, allowing ground-floor commercial space topped with residential apartments — a designation crafted specifically to address noise and light conditions beneath elevated subway lines like the F train that runs above Kings Highway.
The rezoning also mapped the site into a Mandatory Inclusionary Housing area, according to New York City land-use records, meaning any residential project built there is legally required to set aside a share of affordable units for lower- or middle-income households. The site falls within Brooklyn Community District 11 and City Council District 44, covering Gravesend and Bensonhurst.
Environmental Cleanup Still Pending
Before construction can move forward at full scale, the property must also clear an environmental review. In April, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation received an application from an entity called Crystal Residences LLC to enroll the 2074–2080 McDonald Avenue site into the state's Brownfield Cleanup Program under Site ID #C224460, a state process that provides oversight and tax incentives for remediating contaminated parcels. It remains unclear how that brownfield application and its cleanup timeline connect with the construction permits now filed for the same address, and no estimated completion date has been announced for the residential project.
