BFC partners with nonprofit on Bedford Armory

BFC Partners brought a local nonprofit on as a partner on its embattled Bedford Union Armory development project in Brooklyn.

Crown Heights-based Local Development Corp. will get a share of condo sales revenue at the building and can use those funds to finance affordable housing in the area. BFC wants to convert the 138,000-square-foot building into a mixed-use complex including a sports facility, condos and below-market rental units.

Some local activists oppose the project, arguing it isn’t providing enough affordable housing. Bringing on the nonprofit could help sway some critics. “I think this is a worthwhile project for the community and our city,” Caple Spence of Local Development Corp. told Crain’s. “With our participation, I think the elected officials will be much warmer to the development.”

But a member of New York Communities for Change, a group opposing the project, said the move isn’t enough. “(BFC’s) remedy of adding a nonprofit partner this late in the process is like putting a Band-Aid on a tumor,” Vaughn Armour told Crain’s. “The only way to save the Armory is to kill the project and start over.”

BFC [TRDataCustom] initially partnered with Slate Property Group on the project, but Slate left amid City Hall pressure in the wake of the Rivington House scandal.  [Crain’s] — Konrad Putzier