Meeting Monday to Air Local Concerns
Mary Frost
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
BOERUM HILL — Countering a move by a group of more than a dozen local homeowners to prevent a local private school from moving to State Street, hundreds of Boerum Hill residents and business owners have signed a petition supporting the proposed relocation of Brooklyn Friends Lower School from Downtown Brooklyn to the northeast corner of Hoyt Street at State Street.
Circulated by area businessman Nat Hendricks, the petition states: “The new facility will provide sorely needed educational resources to young children of Boerum Hill, Downtown Brooklyn and ALL Brooklyn communities.”
Brooklyn Friends is an increasingly popular private preK — 12 school guided by the Quaker principles of “truth, simplicity and peaceful resolution of conflict.”
A group of State Street residents who call themselves “Keep State Street Residential” has protested the building of any school on the empty lot owned by IBEC Building Corp. The group says that the local community worked for years to fill the gaps in State Street with low-rise residential housing, and fears a school would bring additional traffic and lower property values.
According to a release sent out by the group, “IBEC said they’d [build townhouses] and won the project — 88,000 square feet of prime New York City real estate for just $3.5 million. They signed a contract specifying an apartment building with a quota of affordable housing on Schermerhorn and townhouses on State. Now they want to flip the property and reverse the thoughtful course set by the community.”
On its web site (keepstatestreetresidential.wordpress.com) the group provides a copy of the contract signed by IBEC in 2004 agreeing to build residences on the vacant site.
Samy Brahimy, Partner at IBEC Corporation, told the Brooklyn Eagle via email that the firm’s original plans fell apart in the real estate collapse, and that the school would be the same size as the proposed townhouses.
“Our plan for this corner site, before the real estate market collapsed, was to build a 29 unit condominium building with townhouse type duplex units on the State Street side. The building would comply with the R6-B zoning and the deed restriction. The bulk, massing and profile of this building would be exactly the same as the BFS proposal.”
Petition: An Asset to State Street
Hendricks, a real estate broker and one-time educator who has held various civic positions, has been on the block “at least 44 years.” He said that a school of the caliber of Brooklyn Friends School (BFS) would be an asset to State Street.
“Look at Brooklyn Heights — Saint Ann’s is at the corner of Pierrepont and Monroe Place, one of the toniest places in New York City. Look at Packer. I think property values will go up. People with kids, if they can walk them to school, will want to buy in this neighborhood. It will improve property values.
“Now, if it was a residential drug treatment center, yes, that would lower values. But a quality, private, well-regarded school would increase the values on the block.”
Meeting Monday Night
The Boerum Hill Association has organized a meeting to address the issue for Monday, October 5, at 7 p.m. at the Belarusian Church at the corner of Bond Street and Atlantic Avenue. A spokesperson for Brooklyn Friends confirmed that the school’s architect and a member of the school’s Board of Trustees Building and Expansion Committee will present the school’s case at the meeting, and residents will have a chance to ask questions and raise concerns.
The State Street site is just one of several sites being considered by the school’s search committee. In a statement sent to the Brooklyn Eagle last week, Brooklyn Friends said:
“A committee of the Board of Trustees has been looking at a few sites intensively... This is indeed one of the sites that the school believes would be very attractive for our new building. However, in the real estate field, all options need to be kept open. The school is currently in the process of reviewing the different sites for cost, timing of construction, and minimization of risk. In the meantime, Brooklyn Friends School is remaining focused on our primary objective — getting the very best spot for the future of our school.”
Not Just Out to Make a Quick Buck?
Brahimy hopes to counter the opposition group’s portrayal of the firm as just out to make a quick buck.
“The IBEC/Strategic team is very much invested in the community's future,” he told the Eagle. “We were very sensitive to community concerns while developing the ‘State Renaissance Court,’ a rental building which is now fully occupied right around the corner. In response to the community's desire to have an upscale grocer in the neighborhood, we withheld renting the retail space until we found the right tenant - Brooklyn Fare. We are proceeding with marketing our planned townhouse development known as the Ensemble down the block on State Street between Hoyt and Bond.”
“The sale of this land to BFS would not make or break us,” he said. “The major benefit we see in this proposal is that it would bring a desirable productive use to a vacant site that may otherwise stay vacant for many years . . . We entertained the BFS proposal because we believe that it is a good fit for the neighborhood and that there is a benefit to everyone concerned to bring this vacant lot to a productive use at this time. Brooklyn Friends approached us, we did not have a for sale sign on the property, nor is it on the market for sale.”
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