Slate Property Group, one of the developers poised to profit off of the $16.5 million Rivington House dead lift that cost the Lower East Side one of its last remaining healthcare facilities, has backed out of a large-scale mixed-use development at the 112-year-old Bedford Union Armory in Crown Heights.
Slate's withdrawal, confirmed in an August 19th letter from Slate Principal David Schwartz to City Hall, comes on the heels of public threats from Mayor de Blasio, who said earlier this month that he would reconsider Slate's involvement in the project. "We're going to take a very hard look at that situation," de Blasio told reporters at a press conference. "That contract has not been finalized."
A City Hall source said that the administration took "active steps" to push Slate out of the project.
A Department of Investigation probe into the deed lift that cleared the way for Rivington House to be converted into luxury condos found City Hall culpable, as well as Slate. According to the DOI's report, Slate urged its employees to keep quiet about the impending deal with Allure Group, the for-profit healthcare provider that owned Rivington House, explaining that, "If the City found out about the sale, the deed restriction might not be removed." In other words, Slate allegedly sought to dupe the city, for profit.
But the City's "complete lack of accountability" regarding deed alterations and removals, as well as "significant communication failures" between City agencies, also factored into the deed being lifted, the DOI found.
"We believe this is the right decision," stated Mayoral spokesman Austin Finan, of Slate's announcement. "It protects the vital affordable housing coming to this site, and serves the needs of this community."
The Bedford Union Armory project is slotted to include a mix of market-rate and affordable apartments, as well as offices, community space, and a rec center featuring basketball courts, a swimming pool and an indoor turf field. (Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony is providing input on the rec center.) According to the Economic Development Corporation, the project will tentatively include 18 units, out of a total 330, for renters who make 37 percent of the Area Median Income, or $31,931 for a family of four. For context, a third of NYC households have an annual income of less than $35,000.
Before developers are confirmed and affordability levels are set in stone, the proposal still has to go through a lengthy public review process.
The affordable housing nonprofit New York Communities For Change recently released a report on Slate, calling the EDC's initial willingness to award it the Bedford Union Armory contract "sordid." In addition to the Rivington flip, Slate won rezoning rights at 176 Woodward Avenue in Ridgewood, Queens, on the condition that it would make half of the new apartments affordable. Slate then sold that property to a new owner, who's under no obligation to build 50 percent affordable.
Still, news of Slate's withdrawal from the armory project isn't entirely satisfying for advocates, who say they're still strongly opposed to the proposed affordability requirements on the project, especially since it's being constructed on public land.
"While it's good that Slate—who are notoriously bad actors—are no longer a part of this development, this is still a gross giveaway of extremely valuable public land," stated Esteban Giron of the Crown Heights Tenant Union, adding, "Public land is disappearing from our city, and it is too precious a resource to be wasted on a for-profit developers who received the rights to build unaffordable housing through a corrupted process."
