Amidst the New York housing crisis, more developers have been eyeing Ridgewood and southwest Queens as a viable option to build more apartments and are now proposing two new buildings on the corner of Decatur Street and Cypress Ave.nue just at the border of Bushwick.
American Elegance Furniture Warehouse, located at 10-86 Cypress Ave., closed for business last year and is now the potential site of both a 6- and a 7-story apartment building, according to a rezoning application filed with the Department of City Planning (DCP) on Jan. 13.
Cypress B.Z.V. Corporation, a Brooklyn based company managed by Eitan Naftali, applied to rezone both 10-86 and 11-01 Cypress Ave., a nearby vacant lot, for the two mixed-use commercial and residential buildings, which in total would provide 55 new housing units with retail space on the first floor. Cypress B.Z.V was created in 2003, the same year it purchased both plots of land for $1 million and are currently zoned for manufacturing. If approved, the old building would be demolished to make space for the 21,000 square foot projects.
The area South of Myrtle Avenue (SOMA) is no stranger to construction, as a similar project was completed at 16-61 and 16-71 Summerfield St. in 2021: also offering about 50 condominiums in the two 5-story buildings. Only one unit is currently available: a 1-bed, 1-bath apartment listed at $3,200 a month. Another rezoning application for a similarly sized development at 63-02 Fresh Pond Rd. is currently under review by the City Planning Commission (CPC) and expected to be brought to Queens Community Board 5 in the upcoming months.
Across the two proposed buildings on Cypress, 1o apartments will be designated to be affordable housing for those at the 60% Average Median Income (AMI) bracket, which is about $86k for a family of three in New York. At that bracket, a studio apartment in the building would cost $1,700 a month. Just a week after officially being proposed, neither Council Member Jennifer Gutierrez nor CB5 Managing Director Gary Giordano have responded for comment on the potential rezoning.
