A low-rise building that once housed a Chabad Lubavitch center and a mommy-and-me playroom on Ocean Avenue in Midwood is on track to become a six-story, 12-unit condominium building. Permits were filed Wednesday for the project at 1923 Ocean Avenue, located between Avenue N and Avenue O, with Daniel Ohana listed as the owner behind the applications through an entity called Nespo LLC.
According to New York YIMBY, the proposed building will rise 75 feet and yield 10,974 square feet of residential space, with an average unit scope of 914 square feet suggesting the 12 residences are likely to be condominiums. The plans call for a steel-based structure with a cellar, a penthouse, a 30-foot-long rear yard, and three open parking spaces. No demolition permits have yet been filed for the existing low-rise structure on the site, and no estimated completion date has been announced.
Property records reviewed by PropertyShark show the parcel was purchased for $1,085,000 in May, taking over a site that previously featured a single low-rise structure on a 1,924-square-foot footprint. Marketing materials from Chabad of Flatbush indicate the building had housed its “Little Lights Playroom” mommy-and-me facility along with a Chabad Lubavitch center, before the organization expanded programming and relocated its primary activities to East 22nd Street.
Architect Has Local Track Record
Joseph Wasserman of Steven R. Savino Architect PC is listed as the architect of record on the applications, per New York YIMBY's reporting, and is affiliated with Edifice Drafting and Services. Filing records tracked by Marketproof show the application listed 42 square feet of front yard area and 28 square feet of back yard space, and note that Wasserman recently completed permitting for a two-story residential structure at 62 Abbey Court, which received its final Certificate of Occupancy in June.
The site sits within an R7A contextual residential district, a zoning designation from the NYC Department of City Planning that permits a maximum residential floor area ratio of 4.0 and typically allows medium-density apartment buildings up to eight stories. That bulk allowance is what lets a six-story structure move forward as-of-right, without the discretionary ULURP public review process required for larger rezonings.
Part of a Busy Corridor
The development sits roughly 0.33 miles from the Avenue M subway station, which serves the B and Q trains at the corner of East 15th Street and Avenue M, according to PropertyShark. It joins a stretch of Ocean Avenue that has seen steady multi-family investment: at nearby 2045 Ocean Avenue, an eight-story, 50-unit building constructed after a 2019 purchase secured a $17.7 million refinancing loan from Webster Bank in December 2023, per PincusCo.
That kind of as-of-right infill contrasts with the far larger projects working through the city's formal review pipeline nearby. Hoodline previously reported on a 229-unit tower plan on East 14th Street that entered public review in July, a 170,000-square-foot proposal that includes 57 income-restricted apartments under ULURP — a process the smaller Ocean Avenue project sidesteps entirely.
Neighborhood Housing Squeeze Continues
The new condos add to a housing stock that has grown less affordable over time in Brooklyn Community District 14, which encompasses Flatbush and Midwood and is home to roughly 147,911 residents across 2.8 square miles, according to Census Reporter data. Planning documents from the NYC Department of City Planning show that 57% of housing units in the district were affordable at 80% Area Median Income in 2019, a 13% decline from 2010.
Whether the 12 new condominium units at 1923 Ocean Avenue will do anything to ease that squeeze remains an open question, since the building's unit sizes suggest a market-rate condo product rather than income-restricted housing. For now, the project stands as another entry in Midwood's ongoing wave of small-scale residential construction, following other recent building sales Hoodline has tracked in the area, including a $23.5 million apartment sale along Ocean Parkway.
