G4 Capital Partners Provides $117M to Acquire and Build at 960 Franklin Avenue
A new owner has a plan for the site after previous development plans were killed by community leaders
By Brian Pascus and Abigail Nehring May 3, 2024 12:18 pm
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A controversial development site at 960 Franklin Avenue in Brooklyn is changing hands again.
Through the Franklin Place II LLC, Brooklyn landlord Yitzchok Schwartz bought three lots at 960 Franklin Avenue for $64 million from Isaac Hager and Daryl Hagler, according to property records made public Friday. Schwartz secured $117 million in financing to acquire and build a 289-unit residential project on the site near Prospect Park in Crown Heights.
G4 Capital Partners provided the financing that’s broken up into three notes: a $61.2 million piece, a $42 million piece, and a $13.7 million piece. Jason Behfarin, G4 Capital Partners managing partner and co-founder, is listed as the mortgagee on property records.
G4 Capital Partners and Schwartz did not respond to requests for comment.
Schwartz, who owns a number of rental properties in Brooklyn, filed permits last year to demolish parts of the former Morris J. Golombeck Spice Company factory and submitted plans to the city last month to build a 7-story residential building on the site, which covers the northern half of the factory lot.
The 67,895-square-foot site’s previous owners didn’t hang onto it for very long. Hager and Hagler bought the same three lots for $42.8 million in November 2022 from Abraham “Zev” Golombeck, the owner of the shuttered spice factory that occupied most of the block for decades.
Golombeck previously teamed up with developer Ian Bruce Eichner’s Continuum Company in 2018 and planned to build two 39-story residential towers totaling 1.4 million square feet, of which 50 percent of units would be affordable. But that project met its demise in the pre-development phase when the City Planning Commission rejected the developers’ rezoning application in September 2021.
Pushback from Brooklyn community leaders and former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio helped scuttle the plan, criticizing the project for the shadows its towers would create on the neighboring Brooklyn Botanical Garden. Ownership of 960 Franklin Avenue reverted back to Golombeck in 2022, as the 2017 deal was contingent upon rezoning approval.
While Schwartz will take over the northern part of the factory for his plans, hope springs eternal for Eichner on the southern half.
The developer revived his plans to build a housing development on the site last year and is once again seeking the city’s approval to rezone the lots. This time, the Eichner is proposing a 14-story residential building with 475 units, according to Department of City Planning records.
Brian Pascus can be reached at bpascus@commercialobserver.com. Abigail Nehring can be reached at anehring@commercialobserver.com.
