A construction loan worth $16.2 million is clearing the way for 20 luxury condominium units to rise at 55 Eckford Street in Greenpoint, on a lot that has sat as an abandoned, rusting steel skeleton for more than two decades. The financing, arranged for developer Poise Property Group, also comes tied to a state-mandated cleanup of soil and groundwater contamination left behind by the site's industrial past.
Peter Cohen, a member of Leviathan Capital, arranged the loan, according to New York Real Estate Journal. The 24-month loan carries a 7.75% interest rate with a 7.25% floor, an origination fee under 1%, and no prepayment penalty, per the same outlet. Cohen also structured pre-funded deposits allowing early procurement of critical hard-cost materials, a move meant to support construction progress and execution certainty once the loan closes.
A Foreclosure Sale Ends Two Decades of Limbo
The 10,000-square-foot Eckford Street site had been stalled since 2004 under previous owners before developers Daniel Kaykov and Val Katayev of Poise Property Group picked it up for $7.2 million at a foreclosure auction in April 2024, as reported by Crain's New York Business. Plans filed with the city's Department of Buildings the following April called for demolishing the long-abandoned six-story steel skeleton on the lot and replacing it with a five-story, roughly 34,000-square-foot condo building featuring an eight-car garage. Poise has built similar boutique projects before, including an eight-unit condo at 45 Garnet Street in Carroll Gardens in 2022 and a nine-unit condo at 47 Diamond Street in Greenpoint in 2023, Crain's notes.
Public records recorded in June show Colorado Federal Savings Bank issued the $16.2 million loan, which closed in May, according to PincusCo. The financing runs through an entity called 55 Eckford St LLC, the outlet reports.
Toxic Legacy Forces Complex Cleanup Before Construction
Getting to this point required more than just clearing title. State health and environmental agencies designated the parcel a “significant threat” to public health and the environment due to volatile organic compounds contaminating soil, groundwater, and soil vapor, the result of woodworking and electroplating operations that ran from the early 1900s until 1992, according to the Brooklyn Eagle. The site is now enrolled in New York State's Brownfield Cleanup Program, and the sponsor is executing a remedial action work plan overseen by the state Department of Environmental Conservation to address that historical contamination.
Under the DEC-approved plan, crews must excavate soil down to 15 feet, apply chemical injections between 15 and 30 feet to treat groundwater, and install a sub-slab depressurization system beneath the new building, per NYS Department of Environmental Conservation documents. New York's Brownfield Cleanup Program, established in 2003, has admitted more than 1,300 contaminated sites statewide and completed remediation on over 700 of them, offering tax credits and liability relief to encourage exactly this kind of private redevelopment, according to Phillips Lytle LLP.
Lender Comfort Meets a Hot Condo Market
The transaction required structuring lender comfort around both the environmental remediation and municipal construction requirements, a combination that has historically scared off financing for stalled sites like this one. Leviathan Capital describes itself as delivering tailored financing solutions for complex development projects, and this deal fits that description given the layered cleanup and permitting hurdles involved.
The economics help explain why a lender would take on that complexity. Greenpoint's condo market has kept climbing, with median asking prices reaching roughly $1.7 million to $1.85 million through mid-2026, according to Byson Real Estate. That pricing power helps offset the added cost of excavation, chemical injection, and depressurization systems required before any vertical construction can begin.
The Eckford Street loan is part of a broader wave of condo construction financing moving through Greenpoint this year. Another Greenpoint tower nabbed a $21M loan for a 73-unit building at 148-150 Green Street around the same time, underscoring sustained lender appetite for residential debt across the neighborhood even as individual sites carry outsized environmental and construction risk.
