Thorobird Planning 213-Unit Affordable Residential Building in Cypress Hills

More affordable housing is coming to Brooklyn. 

Developer Thorobird filed plans for a 213-unit, affordable apartment building at 581 Grant Avenue in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, property records show. 

The plan was filed with the New York City Department of Buildings by Sandy Rozario, director of development with Thorobird. Rozario did not respond to a request for comment. 

Thorobird wants to replace a two-family home at the site to build an eight-story building that will include a community center on the first floor, according to PincusCo, which first reported the plans for the project. 

The Grant Avenue site is in a residential area between Pitkin and Glenmore avenues, about a block from Conduit Boulevard and near the Grant Avenue subway stop on the A train.

Martin Kaplan is listed as the architect of the project, according to PincusCo. Kaplan designed other affordable housing projects including Bridge Rockaway at 203 Newport Street in Brooklyn, St. Philip Neri Apartments at 3069 Villa Avenue in the Bronx, and the Betances Family Apartments at 405 East 146th Street in the Bronx. 

The project was first announced in 2019 as a 167-unit modular housing project designed by Think! Architecture and Design. It’s unclear what happened to those plans and if Thorobird is still pursuing a modular design for the project.

New York City is struggling with a decades-long housing crisis and a historically low vacancy rate — 1.4 percent — across the five boroughs. City and state governments are putting plans in place to help alleviate the pressure and create more housing.

In an effort to make housing more accessible, Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed a law that would block private equity firms from trampling over families looking to purchase their first home, as Commercial Observer previously reported. Developer-focused tax incentive programs like 485x and 467m have also been established to help create more affordable housing, and a massive rezoning effort — City of Yes — was recently passed to allow housing development in areas that previously prohibited such projects. 

Amanda Schiavo can be reached at aschiavo@commercialobserver.com.