Maddd Partners With Joy and Food Bazaar to Buy Bronx Development Site for $23M

Maddd Equities has partnered with Joy Construction and supermarket chain Food Bazaar to purchase a development site in the Bronx for $22.6 million, according to city records made public Monday.

The firms bought the two-story parking garage at 1959 Jerome Avenue through the entity Hdpc2 Housing Development Fund Company from Peter Fine’s Atlantic Development Group, records show. The new owners plan to build a roughly 320-unit housing development with a Food Bazaar at the base.

Fine, who also leads Bolivar Development, was the listed signatory for the seller, 1941-1959 Jerome Avenue, while Jamie Smarr, CEO of the Housing Partnership Development Corporation, signed for the buyer. Maddd financed the purchase with a $16.2 million loan from LibreMax Capital, according to PincusCo, which first reported the deal.

Ripco Real Estate’s Mitchel Flaherty, Brian Whelan and Jonathan Auerbach brokered the deal for both sides.

Spokespeople for Maddd, Joy and Food Bazaar did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Smarr also did not respond, while Fine could not be reached for comment.

Fine’s Atlantic Development — which bought the Morris Heights property in April 2021 for $13.9 million — initially filed plans in January 2023 for a 333-unit mixed-use building at the site, but those plans have not been approved, PincusCo reported.

Now, the property’s new owners have their sights set on building a 15-story affordable housing development with a 35,000-square-foot Food Bazaar on the ground floor, Eli Weiss, principal of Joy, told Crain’s New York Business.

Overall, the project will span about 300,000 square feet, with construction beginning next year and finishing in about two years, Weiss told Crain’s. 1959 Jerome Avenue is near the corner of Jerome and Tremont avenues, below the elevated tracks of the No. 4 train and about seven blocks north of Interstate 95.

It’s unclear what the median income levels will be for the affordable units, but Fine had formerly planned to offer units to households earning between 40 percent and 60 percent of the area median income, according to Crain’s. That’s about $56,000 to $84,000 for a family of three.

This isn’t the first time Maddd, Joy and Food Bazaar have worked together on a development in New York City. In October 2023, the supermarket signed a 37,000-square-foot lease at the base of Inwood’s 375 West 207th Street, where Maddd and Joy are building a 611-unit residential building.

And, in the South Bronx near Yankee Stadium, Maddd and Joy are developing River Crest, a 750-unit affordable and supportive housing project at 1164 River Avenue, Crain’s reported.

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