Developer Wants To Build
35 Units in Red Hook Location
By Sarah Ryley
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
RED HOOK — In Brooklyn today, nearly every vacant lot has a price on its head, and the one at 45 Summit St. in Red Hook is no exception. There, Michele Paladino, owner of the Gowanus Nursery, could be forced to move if the Department of City Planning approves a request from the property owners that would allow them to build housing on the lot she subleases.
If that happens, she said she doesn’t know where she’ll go next.
“There aren’t a lot of opportunities for 10-year leases on property in Brooklyn, especially for property like this,” said Paladino, gesturing across the vacant lot she transformed only a year ago into gravel paths meandering around explosions of perennials, shrubs, shade trees, flowers and herbs. She said butterflies, birds and bumblebees are also commonly seen here, as they tend to be attracted to native plant species, a category that describes 90 percent of her stock.
Though beautiful, a gardener’s paradise is not as financially lucrative to a landlord as the potential for residential development, she explained. “In the Brooklyn that is today, it is really hard to get even a two-year lease, especially in this area.”
Paladino said she spent roughly $60,000 last year to move her business from Third Street in Gowanus — her old landlord decided to develop housing on that property, too — to its current enclave at 45 Summit St., and she’s still repaying the loan. She subleases the lot from neighboring Composition Workshops, a photography and set design studio that does work for magazines like Lucky and House & Garden, and is currently building sets for Fashion Week in Bryant Park.
Composition Workshops office manager Audra Namm said the company moved to its current location in 2005, after being pushed out of its old spot to make way for residential development. On the move, Namm said the company has spent $150,000 since renovating, “and we have to do that again if we moved.”
The property owners, Jack LoCicero and Eric Nocera, submitted an application to the city last May requesting that the zoning be changed from manufacturing and commercial uses to residential, on 12 lots including the one Paladino subleases.
LoCicero, who is not listed as the applicant but is the owner of several of the properties according to city records, is best known in south Park Slope for his projects on 15th and 22nd streets. There, he received a height bonus, allowing him to build several stories higher than usual in exchange for promising to include “community facilities” in the development, in these cases for the same Orthodox yeshiva, which never ended up moving in.
Other problems plagued construction, from cracks in adjacent walls to buildings nearly collapsing.
LoCicero acquired the property that Paladino subleases in 2004, in an auction of foreclosed properties, for nearly $1 million, according to city records.
The apartment building proposed for Summit and Carroll streets would have four stories and 35 units, some of which would be affordable to low or middle income families, according to a letter addressed to Borough President Marty Markowitz’s office.
Markowitz, “concerned that too many of the borough’s residents leave because they can no longer afford to live in Brooklyn,” recommended that City Planning approve the application. Community Board 6 recommended that City Planning disapprove the application.
“I would hate to leave Brooklyn, I really would. We are doing everything we can to stay here, and I’m even willing to take a financial risk,” said Paladino, now visibly upset.
“I live in a rental in Hastings [in Westchester County]. I can’t even afford to live in Brooklyn. When I first started my business, I had to move in with my sister.”
Paladino said she’d ultimately like to relocate to the Public Place site on the Gowanus Canal once the city chooses a developer.
LoCicero and Nocera did not return requests for comment by press time. Steven Sinacori, the lawyer representing Nocera, confirmed that LoCicero is a partner in the project, but said he’s not at liberty to answer questions about the application.
City Planning’s 60-day review period on the application ends Oct. 15.
© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007
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