72 CATON PLACE PARKING LOT JUST GOT SOLD

The Carlyle Group bought the vacant land at 72 Caton Place from JEMB Realty on May 24th for $23 million. The deed names 72 Caton Place Owner LLC (c/o The Carlyle Group at 299 Park Avenue, 35th floor) as the buyer and Caton Member LLC (at 150 Broadway, Suite 800) as the seller.

JEMB Realty, which bought the land from Suzuki Partners in April 2017 for $15.2 million dollars, had planned to build an eight-story self-storage facility on it.

Suzuki Partners, which bought it from Calvary Cathedral of Praise in February 2015, had planned to erect a nine-story residential rental and retail building.

Prior to that, it served as Calvary's parking lot.

SELF-STORAGE FACILITY FOR CATON PLACE WILL BE LOOKED INTO BY OUR CITY COUNCILMEMBER

A proposal for an eight-story self-storage facility at 72 Caton Place--the site of a parking lot formerly owned by Calvary Cathedral of Praise and used by its congregants--has evoked negative reactions from some nearby residents. New York City Councilmember Brad Lander responds:

Dear Kensington/Stable Brooklyn friends,

Like many of you, I was very distressed to read about this. The owners did not come to talk to me or my office about it in advance. As you may remember, we invited them to attend last summer's community meeting.

While we had representatives from the stables and from the 57 Caton site (next door to the stables), the owners of the 72 Caton site (i.e., the Calvary Cathedral parking lot) did not attend. We had not heard any more from them when we read this article in the paper.

We are reaching out to them again now to push them to present to the community on their plans.

It looks like they are trying to do the project "as-of-right" (i.e., without a rezoning). Self-storage is an allowable usage in a C8-2 zone . (And, for what it's worth, while C8-2 does mean 2.0 FAR*, that is not the same as a two-story building; depending on the lot & building size, it could be possible to build 8 stories.)

That does not mean, of course, that what they are proposing complies with the zoning automatically. We are reaching out to the Department of Buildings, to push them to carefully & fully scrutinize the project, and my office will look at it as well. If there are technical, building-code problems with their proposal, we will work hard to find them.

As we discussed at the meeting this summer, we had assumed that the owner/developer would likely seek a zoning change to propose a residential development (as, for example, the owners of 57 Caton are doing).

At that meeting, many of you made clear that your top priority was, understandably, to preserve the lot-line windows of the neighbors at 346 Coney Island Avenue.

I agreed to push hard for this and to only be open to any rezoning if it addressed this issue. Because the owners never reached out to us, we never had the chance for that conversation.

In the coming days, we will stay in close touch and look forward to working with you to achieve the best possible outcome. And we also hope to know more soon about what is taking place with regard to the stables and the 57 Caton site as well.

Brad

* Floor Area Ratio (FAR): The floor area ratio is the principal bulk regulation controlling the size of buildings. FAR is the ratio of total building floor area to the area of its zoning lot. Each zoning district has an FAR which, when multiplied by the lot area of the zoning lot, produces the maximum amount of floor area allowable on that zoning lot. For example, on a 10,000 square foot zoning lot in a district with a maximum FAR of 1.0, the floor area on the zoning lot cannot exceed 10,000 square feet. http://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/zoning/glossary.page

SELF-STORAGE BUILDING PLANNED FOR CATON PLACE

UPDATE, January 20, 2018:
From the Department of Buildings website: Last Action: PLAN EXAM - DISAPPROVED 01/19/2018 (J). Development Challenge Process is pending Zoning Approval.

"Zoning approval" is the decision the Department of Buildings (DOB) makes to indicate that a proposed new building complies with zoning. Zoning approval is pending for this building because (DOB) disapproved the plan exam.

If and when the job receives zoning approval, the Development Challenge Process will begin. The project's architects and engineers will submit diagrams showing its size and scale. Those diagrams will be posted online for the public to view. People have forty-five calendar days from the date of the zoning approval to review the job and to challenge the approval.

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The parking lot at 72 Caton Place--formerly owned by Calvary Cathedral of Praise--might be converted to an 8-story, 109-foot-tall CubeSmart self-storage facility. Permits were filed with the Department of Buildings on January 4, 2018.

The facility would open in 2020. 

The location is mapped as a C8-2 district. All commercial uses (except large, open amusements) as well as certain community facilities are permitted in C8 districts. Introducing a self-storage facility there wouldn't require rezoning.

The previous purchaser, who bought it from the church and later sold it to the current developer, had intended it to be a mixed residential and retail building.

The property is located between Coney Island Avenue and E. 8th Street.

For additional details, see the articles in New York YIMBY and Windsor Terrace Patch.