The owners of the former Cascade Linen factory site in Bedford-Stuyvesant are seeking a $144 million construction loan for a large religious housing development on the site, sources told The Real Deal.
A group of investors from Williamsburg’s Hasidic Satmar community including Abraham Brach, Nachman Leibowitz and Fishel Deitch are planning to proceed with a seven-building, mixed-use complex proposed by the site’s previous owner, sources said. The site’s addresses include 553-569 Marcy Avenue, 833-869 Myrtle Avenue and 90-134 Stockton Street.
The site is best known as the longtime home of the Cascade Linen Supply Company, which operated the buildings as its industrial plant from 1898 until 2010.
In 2013, Mike Kohn’s Alliance Capital Group bought the nine buildings on the site for $27 million. In December 2014, the firm filed plans for the aforementioned complex, slated to span 550,000 square feet. Plans called for 228 apartments across 450,000 square feet, as well as a 100,000-square-foot commercial component. Each building would have 25 to 45 apartments and rise six stories.
The housing would be marketed to families and other members of the Orthodox Jewish community.
Brach and partners bought the site from Alliance Capital Group for $70 million in March 2015, property records show.
At the same time, they secured $22 million in interim debt from Canadian non-bank mortgage lender Romspen in March 2015, records show.
After the buildings were demolished last year, the owners encountered a new obstacle. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation found that the land’s soil, groundwater and soil vapor are contaminated with lead and other chemicals, DNAinfo reported in February. The state agency said the level of contamination surpasses state standards, but does not pose a “significant threat.”
The investors control the entity Cascade 553 LLC, which has a mailing address at the notorious LLC farm 199 Lee Avenue. They could not be reached for comment.