MF1 Capital Provides $165M for JCS Realty’s Bronx Residential Project

Jacob Schwimmer’s JCS Realty has secured $165 million in financing for its residential project at 138 Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx’s Mott Haven neighborhood, according to city records made public Friday.

MF1 Capital provided the gap mortgage after taking over the property’s existing $105 million debt, records show. While 138 Bruckner Realty LLC was listed as the lessee, Schwimmer himself was the signatory on the loan.

Spokespeople for JCS Realty and MF1 did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Schwimmer signed a ground lease on the property in 2022 from Montgomery Street Capital, which purchased the site for $55 million, with plans to build a rental building at the former warehouse site, according to The Real Deal, which first reported the news.

Called One38 Mott Haven, Schwimmer’s 12-story rental building at 138 Bruckner Boulevard will consist of 579 units — 135 of which are affordable and were added to the housing lottery in May, according to New York YIMBY. Leasing is currently open at the building.

And this isn’t Schwimmer’s first foray into development in the Bronx. In January, an entity linked to Schwimmer secured $51 million in gap mortgage financing — also from MF1 — for the Bruckner House, a nearby affordable housing project at 40 Bruckner Boulevard.

Leasing for the 365 units in that building began at the end of 2023, with an affordable housing lottery launched for 110 units for Bronx residents making between $98,915 and $198,250 a year, as Commercial Observer previously reported.

Not too far away in Mott Haven, JCS Realty also has a 12-story multifamily property at 276 Grand Concourse, which was completed in 2022.

That’s in addition to the developer’s rental building in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood at 115 Stanwix Street, called The Stanwix. Schwimmer bought that development site from Rabsky Group in 2017 for $23.4 million, CO reported.

Schwimmer’s father, Cheskel Schwimmer, began the family’s line of work by developing The Arches, two 25-story towers in Mott Haven that comprise 430 units, located at 224-228 East 135th Street, TRD reported.

More and more developers are now looking toward the Bronx’s large warehouses for residential project potential. 138 Bruckner Boulevard itself was home to a Zaro’s Bakery warehouse before Schwimmer nabbed it up.

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.