Meredith Marshall and Geoff Flournoy

BRP’s 2021 saw the development of 1.1 million square feet of space equalling 1,082 units for $585million in closings.

“Business is growing,” Meredith Marshall said. “There’s been some recalibration into the post-COVID era — you’re seeing higher-end people like larger apartments — and it’s a different mix than pre-COVID. New York is in business again.”

Prominent transactions for BRP in 2021 included closing with a number of partners on construction financing for a mixed-use development in downtown New Rochelle that will include 477 resident units, ranging from studios to two-bedrooms. Of these, 119 will be designated affordable, with 99 reserved for households making up to 60 percent of area median income (AMI), and another 20 units for those making up to 50 percent of AMI.

Some of BRP’s other 2021 accomplishments include breaking ground on Archer Towers, a planned 24-story, 542,000-square-foot mixed-use development in Jamaica, Queens, that will offer 605 mixed-income residences.

“That’s not an institutional market, but rent levels are outperforming or hitting everyone’s performance,” Marshall said.

BRP also began leasing Caton Flats in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and arranged debt and equity financing for Arboretum, a 292-unit, garden-style rental community in Farmingdale, N.Y.

With the worst of COVID seemingly behind us, Marshall anticipates significant growth in2022, depending in part on the future of the affordable housing tax abatement program 421a. Lawmakers did not agree to a successor for 421a in the state budget they passed in April.

“[We’ll have a] much better year, as things are getting back to normal,” Marshall said. “We have different capital providers, so we’ll be closing on about $1 billion in transactions in 2022, and set-ting up for 2023 to be even larger, or similar to 2022.

“There’s some regulatory uncertainty inNew York with 421a,” he added. “We do a lot of affordable, or tax-exempt, that’s buried into the affordable housing regime. But you have to be pretty nimble and flexible in your outlook to try to build in the outer boroughs without that. So that’s a challenge we’re facing in 2022. We hope the electeds and everyone else will help figure that out, and extend 421a.”