Rockrose is buying a development site that was once part of the vision to rezone the Long Island College Hospital.
The firm is in contract to buy 91-95 Pacific Street in Cobble Hill from Madison Realty Capital, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.
Madison and Rockrose declined to comment on the purchase or its price.
The previous owner, Fortis Property Group, had sold the site, along with 350 Hicks Street, to Madison Realty in October 2022 in order to avoid foreclosure proceedings. Fortis had planned to build two condo buildings with a total of 150 units on the sites, most of which would be at the Pacific Street site, also known as 2 River Park.
But in September 2022, Madison Realty, the projects’ lender, initiated UCC foreclosure on the equity interests in the sites after Fortis defaulted on $47.7 million in debt. The parties subsequently reached a deal to settle the debt.
Rockrose’s plans for the site were not immediately clear.
The former hospital campus has been at the center of various controversies over the last decade. State officials voted to close the hospital, which had been operating for more than 150 years, in early 2013. But unions representing hospital workers and elected officials fought the plan, and the hospital ultimately did not shut down until 2014. Fortis bought the site in 2015 for $240 million from the State University of New York. A year later, the developer scrapped plans to rezone the site, rejecting demands for more affordable housing in favor of market-rate housing.
More recently, in a lawsuit filed by SUNY against Fortis, the two parties have accused each other of failing to fulfill their obligations under the 2015 deal. SUNY accused Fortis of failing to close on the second phase of the deal.
The case involves the Pacific Street site. Fortis claimed that NYU’s delayed construction of its medical facility prevented the developer from beginning construction on 2 River Park and resulted in more than $12 million in carrying costs, forcing the company to turn the site over to Madison. Fortis alleged that SUNY pledged to credit it for those and other costs but failed to do so.
Fortis and SUNY agreed to mediation in June.
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