HRA Renews Downtown Brooklyn Veterans’ Service Center
By Rebecca Baird-Remba August 16, 2023 1:43 pm
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The New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA) has renewed space for a veterans’ benefits center at 25 Chapel Street in Downtown Brooklyn, according to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), which handles leasing for the city.
The agency reupped its 9,199 square feet on the sixth floor of the 12-story building, which is located between the Manhattan Bridge approach on Flatbush Avenue and Jay Street, for five years through September 2027, according to a notice in The City Record.
The city will pay a rent of $43 per square foot, or $393,275 annually, and successfully negotiated a rent credit of $9,160 per month from Oct. 1, 2022 until the new lease begins, according to The City Record.
HRA uses the Downtown Brooklyn outpost for its Michael J. Handy Veterans’ Service Center, which connects veterans with cash assistance, job training, housing assistance, food stamps, housing vouchers and federal veterans’ benefits. It has occupied the space since 2001.
The agency’s press office didn’t immediately return a request for comment, and it wasn’t clear what brokers were involved in the deal.
The landlord is 40 Flatbush Realty Associates, which appears to be linked to Joseph Jemal of Icer Properties. Jemal didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
The building is also home to a handful of other tenants, including testing company LabCorp and criminal justice reform nonprofit Center for Community Alternatives. LGBTQ health center Callen-Lorde also has its Brooklyn treatment facility on the Flatbush Avenue side of the building.
Across the street is 22 Chapel Street, a newly completed, CetraRuddy-designed rental tower with 180 apartments — of which 25 are affordable — and a 5,000-square-foot drug treatment center.
Rebecca Baird-Remba can be reached at rbairdremba@commercialobserver.com.
