Square Mile Provides $180M Construction Loan on Brooklyn Resi Project

Jeffrey Gershon’s Hope Street Capital has landed $180.3 million in debt from Square Mile Capital Management to begin developing its planned multifamily tower at 550 Clinton Avenue in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, Commercial Observer has learned.
The construction financing, which closed on Nov. 27, was arranged and secured by AKS Capital Partners co-founders Aaron Appel, Keith Kurland and Jonathan and Adam Schwartz.
550 clinton avenue Square Mile Provides $180M Construction Loan on Brooklyn Resi Project A RENDERING OF 550 CLINTON AVENUE. COURTESY: HOPE STREET CAPITAL The 280,000-square-foot property is slated to comprise 284 residences and 60,000 square feet of commercial space. As part of the development of the residential tower, Hope Street will also be making repairs to an adjacent landmarked church — the 19th-century Church of St. Luke & St. Matthew at 520 Clinton Avenue. In March 2018, the developer finally got approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) to erect its project next to the old church, combining the two into one zoning lot and securing roughly 60,000 square feet of air rights held by the church; Hope Street had put forth its proposal for the church that January.
The LPC had reportedly returned the original proposal to the developing party for revisions, which included an altered tower design and a restoration to the church’s facade; the initial proposal focused on a patch repair rather than a full repair of the building’s exterior, as per a 2018 report in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
The Morris Adjmi Architects-designed residential tower — at the corner of Clinton Avenue and Atlantic Avenue, a bustling stretch of road in Brooklyn — will have retail on the ground floor, coworking space managed by Hope Street and a landscaped rooftop. It will also feature a gym and a game room and lounge as well as an outdoor pool that will be located on the rooftop of the base of the development, which is about three stories tall and gives way to the residential high-rise that will tower over the pool area.