Park Slope Linen Supplier Eyes Nine-Story Apartment Project

An application has been filed to turn a South Slope linen supply factory into hundreds of apartments.

Arrow Linen Supply Company is seeking new zoning to develop a nine-story, 247,000-square-foot residential project at 441 and 467 Prospect Avenue.

The proposal will test the appetite for new housing of rookie City Council member Shahana Hanif, who controversially shrunk a much smaller project last year in her district.

Park Slope has one of the tightest and priciest housing markets in Brooklyn. Although the Arrow site is on the southern edge of the neighborhood, it borders Windsor Terrace, where real estate is almost as expensive.

A spokesperson for Hanif said Arrow, which owns the lot and its several low-scale buildings, is working with an architect but does not yet have a developer. The formal review process, which would culminate with a City Council vote no sooner than next year, has not begun.

The project presents another opportunity for the local Council member to prove her progressive bona fides after opponents of a 48-unit, mixed-income development at 153 Ninth Street in Gowanus persuaded her to reduce it to 13 to 23 units, potentially all market-rate. Hanif said she was protecting industrial jobs across the street.

The Prospect Avenue lots are zoned RB5, which is typically used for three-story row houses. But records show laundry services at the large Prospect Avenue site date back to at least the 1940s. Arrow Linen’s variance allowing for industrial use was last extended in May 2022.

Arrow on Thursday filed an environmental assessment statement, which determines if a more expensive environmental impact statement is needed. After the Department of City Planning certifies the application, Brooklyn Community Board 7 and Borough President Antonio Reynoso will render opinions, followed by binding votes by the City Planning Commission and the City Council.

The process takes four and half to seven months. Under the Council’s custom of member deference, the outcome hinges on the say of the local member, Hanif.

Rezoning would subject future development to the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing law, which requires at least 25 percent affordability. It is unclear if a rental project on Prospect Avenue would pencil out without the property tax break 421a being restored in some form by the state legislature.

Arrow Linen has owned 441 and 467 Prospect Avenue since buying them in 1978 from General Linen Supply and Laundry Company, which provided Arrow a $150,000 mortgage. The debt was paid off in 2013 when Arrow took out a $5.4 million loan from Citibank on the same properties.

It’s unclear whether Arrow aims to relocate or shut down its business or what kind of arrangement it will seek with a developer. Numerous options are available, but typically the landowner’s compensation would depend on what sort of development the city approves.

Arrow Linen, its land-use attorney Frank St. Jacques and the Department of City Planning did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.