NEW YORK | LICH Redevelopment | FT | FLOORS

[NYguy]

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/201...29899/50-story-towers-eyed-for-lich-site

50-story towers eyed for LICH site
In addition to a full-service hospital to replace money-losing Long Island College Hospital, developers consider the highest of high-rises.





Barbara Benson and Daniel Geiger
April 25, 2014

The highest-scoring bid for Long Island College Hospital captured the support of surrounding Brooklyn communities and elbowed aside a deep field of competitors by pledging to preserve a full-service hospital at the Cobble Hill site.

But that pledge comes at a cost. The would-be real estate developers of the medical campus are counting on high-rise residential towers of a scale never before seen in an area at the heart of Brownstone Brooklyn in order to make the deal pencil out, according to emails among executives involved in the bid.

Brooklyn Health Partners envisions raising at least two soaring residential buildings of up to 50-stories on the campus of low-rise buildings that comprises LICH. BHP has plans to build a 40- to 50-story condo tower on the site of a large parking garage on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Hicks Street that is part of the LICH campus, according to emails from a financier involved in the bid and obtained by Crain's.

The building would be 80% market rate and 20% affordable. The financing group, HKS Capital Partners, indicated in the Brooklyn Health Partners proposal that it plans to raise the roughly $600 million that BHP estimates it will need to acquire the hospital, keep it running and refurbish it, as well as to develop up to 2 million square feet of residential space, according to the emails.

The BHP developers envision raising another tower that could be similar in height and size, but would feature rental apartments, 40% of which would be affordable housing.

BHP currently is negotiating with the State University of New York on a contract to buy the LICH campus. The group scored the highest number of points in a bidding process concluded by SUNY earlier this month. A coalition of community groups and unions sued the school system to revamp its bidding process for LICH, opening the door for BHP’s last round winning bid. As a result of a court settlement, the bids were scored to award higher points for proposals that included building a full-service hospital at LICH.

In an email, the financier at HKS Capital Partners, John Richard Chantengco, points to the recently approved Domino Sugar redevelopment plan, suggesting that it sets a precedent under Mayor Bill de Blasio's new administration for denser development so long as a developer promises more affordable housing in return. The developer of the Domino deal, Two Trees, pledged that 30% of the 2,300 units it is creating at that site will be affordable.

"Did you notice I said 40%?" Mr. Chantengco said in the March 4 email to BHP's principals, suggesting that that higher ratio of affordable housing would pass muster with the new administration and win BHP the right to build bigger at LICH.

"We are spoon feeding our deal to de Blasio," he wrote.

BHP would need approval from the city and City Council to receive needed zoning changes that would permit it to construct high-rise tower in that area.

The new details show how BHP, a bid led by executives Merrell Schexnydre and Larry English, plans to use the residential real estate portion of the development to pay for--and profit from--its ambitious proposal to build a full-service hospital at the site of Long Island College Hospital, which is scheduled to close in May. It is unclear whether Cobble Hill and surrounding communities, which vigorously protested the hospital's closure and initially embraced BHP as the winner of the bid, will support the firm's plan for large-scale residential development.