City announces RFPs for development of Brig site.

Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner Shaun Donovan announced today that the City is releasing a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the redevelopment of the Brig site in Wallabout, Brooklyn.

The site of a former prison will be redeveloped to create approximately 400 new housing units, of which more than two thirds will be affordable housing. It will also include commercial and community facility space, and open space.

The RFP follows an International Design Workshop hosted by HPD in December 2003 and a Community Task Force on the future of the site announced by Mayor Bloomberg in July 2004.

The 103,000 s/f site is located in the Wallabout section of Brooklyn and is bounded by Flushing Avenue to the north, Park Avenue to the south, Clermont Avenue to the east, and Vanderbilt Avenue to the west. The affordable housing built will be part of Mayor Bloomberg's New Housing Marketplace Plan to build and preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing over ten years.

"This redevelopment will help transform the Brig site into a real resource for the Wallabout community and provide much needed housing, including affordable housing," said HPD Commissioner Shaun Donovan. "Community involvement has been key to ensuring we realize the full potential of this site and I want to thank members of the Brig Community Task Force for the time and talent they have donated to this important effort. Once complete, the site will include affordable, market rate and permanent supportive apartments, a community facility, neighborhood retail space and open space. New York City's success in reducing crime, reforming our schools, and building our economy is creating a major new challenge: providing affordable housing for all those who want to share in that success. The Mayor's $7.5 billion Housing Plan will provide homes for 500,000 New Yorkers over ten years, more than the entire population of Atlanta."

The residential component of this redevelopment will include a mixture of homeownership and rental units as well as supportive housing. Supportive housing is subsidized permanent housing with social services.

A minimum of 50% of all homeownership and rental units, not including the supportive housing units, must be affordable with at least 30% of the units for middle-income families and 20% for low-income families.

At least 75 supportive housing studio units must be provided and affordable to low-income families, many of whom will be formerly-homeless. Preference will be given to proposals that provide the maximum affordability to a range of incomes using the least amount of subsidy. The commercial space will be located on the ground floor along Flushing Avenue.

Landscaped open space and a community facility with a minimum of 15,000 s/f of space will be part of the redevelopment. The site will be conveyed to the selected developer for a nominal fee of $1.00.

As a pilot for New York City's Design and Construction Excellence Initiative, this project should serve as an outstanding example of high-quality, sustainable design and construction that is financially feasible and responsive to the community.

All buildings in the project must achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. LEED is a green building rating system, developed by the that provides a list of standards for environmentally-sustainable construction.

Proposals will be reviewed by HPD with input from the New York City Department of Design and Construction (DDC).

The development team will be selected based on an evaluation of professional qualifications and experience, feasibility of the proposal, affordability of residential units, quality of design and construction, and other factors as noted in the RFP.