A vacant parking lot on Wyckoff Avenue in Bushwick could soon become a 13-story building with 321 apartments, including 85 set aside as permanently affordable. Criterion Group, the developer behind the proposal, has submitted a rezoning application for the site at 900 Wyckoff Avenue, sandwiched between Weirfield and Hancock streets.
The project, reported by Commercial Observer, would span roughly 261,000 square feet and include about 19,200 square feet of commercial and retail space, per the filing. Criterion Group is described in the outlet’s reporting as a Queens-based real estate development and asset management firm. The rezoning application has gone to the New York City Department of City Planning, and the listed primary applicant is Jaclyn Scarinci, who is associated with the law firm Akerman.
A Long-Vacant Lot Gets a New Pitch
The site is currently a vacant parking lot, and its ownership history carries a notable discrepancy. Commercial Observer’s reporting states that Criterion Group acquired 900 Wyckoff Avenue for $4.7 million in March 2021, while a separate listing from Traded puts the same March 2021 sale at $6.7 million. Traded’s record also describes the property that changed hands as an industrial site of roughly 37,000 square feet on a 180-by-200-foot corner lot.
Criterion Group framed the project as consistent with the city’s broader housing push. The developer said the proposed development would further the objectives of Block by Block, the city’s housing plan, and would help advance New York City’s goal of building 200,000 affordable homes over the next decade. That citywide target appears in an October announcement from the NYC Mayor’s Office, which described a plan to create 200,000 new affordable homes and preserve another 200,000 over the next decade, backed by $22 billion in affordable-housing capital over five years.
Bushwick’s Development Pressure Runs Deep
The Wyckoff Avenue proposal lands in a neighborhood that has absorbed heavy residential growth for years. More than 5,000 new housing units have gone up in Bushwick’s R6 zoning since 2008, according to New America. The same analysis, attributed to the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, estimated that Bushwick’s existing zoning could allow as many as 7,000 more market-rate units if nothing changed…