Hope Street Capital Lands $55M Loan for Brooklyn Project
SCALE Lending provided the construction financing for the part-affordable community.
959 Sterling Place. Image courtesy of Hope Street Capital
Hope Street Capital has secured the construction financing for its partially-affordable housing development in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood. SCALE Lending provided the $55 million construction loan, which was arranged by Walker & Dunlop.
The financing will be used to construct 959 Sterling Place, a 150,000-square-foot residential development. The seven-story community will have 158 units in studio, one- and two-bedroom floorplans, 48 of which will be set aside as affordable housing under the Affordable New York program. The community is also expected to have an outdoor garden, resident lounge and gym.
The developer has already started construction, but had to go through a lengthy permits and approvals process. The project is being built on a lot next to the Hebron Seventh Day Adventist Bilingual School, which has been designated a New York City landmark. Due to the historic nature of the site, the project initially drew some criticism from the city’s Landmark Preservation Commission and the neighborhood. In response, Hope Street Capital scaled back the community’s design in order to receive the necessary approvals to move forward with the project.
Busy year for scale lending
With the latest loan for 959 Sterling Place, SCALE Lending has closed more than $1.25 billion in loans in the last 12 months. The company, which is the lending affiliate of Slate Property Group, focuses on providing loans in the New York metro area. As for why SCALE has been so active in the last few months, Martin Nussbaum, the co-founder & principal of Slate Property Group, told Multi-Housing News in a Q&A that there was strong confidence in the city’s recovery.
With the city’s recovery in mind, SCALE provided a $68.5 million construction loan for a 165-unit community in Brooklyn’s Prospect Lefferts Garden neighborhood that has a portion of its units reserved as affordable housing in November. In the same month, the company provided $96 million in construction and land acquisition financing for two developments in Jersey City, N.J.
