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A MALL GROWS IN …

…Brooklyn as East New York gets suburban-style power center

By Dave Bodamer

Gateway Center in Brooklyn’s East New York will be the borough’s largest suburban-style retail project.

The 640,000-square-foot Gateway Center, now under construction in the East New York section of Brooklyn, may not break new ground architecturally, but the power center is a monument to persistence.

Construction of the project is the culmination of more than 10 years of work on the part of Starrett Housing Corp., New York City, which for years has attempted to build the 2,000-unit Gateway Estates housing project on that site. Building the power center will enable Starrett to complete that goal.

For the past two years, Gateway Properties LLC, a joint venture of two New York city-based firms, Related Retail Corp. and Blackacre Capital Management, has worked to bring the proposal to life. With the project, the developers and New York City are upgrading the area around the center. A new $25 million interchange will be completed on the nearby Belt Parkway. There will also be a 17-acre public park and a 54-acre grasslands preserve constructed on White Island in Jamaica Bay, all of which are privately funded. Overall, Related will spend $192 million on the project, including $150 million on the center and $42 on the infrastructure improvements to the surrounding area.

“Gateway Center will offer people living in eastern Brooklyn and southern Queens an outstanding shopping experience where they can get the products they want at affordable prices without leaving New York City,” said Glenn Goldstein, vice president of Related Retail Corp. “Moreover, the development of this long-dormant site will provide a major economic boost to the region.”

As planned, Gateway Center will be the largest suburban-style retail project in Brooklyn and one of the largest shopping centers in all of New York City. The developers gained clearance to build the center on a 230-acre former landfill that has stood vacant for decades. The site is a collection of parcels of land owned by the state and the city that sits just off the Belt Parkway.

Starrett gained control of the site in 1989 and had plans to develop mixed-income housing with parks and possibly a school, but the city balked at providing the $100 million in public funding that would have been necessary to get the project going. Starrett eventually brought in Related and added a retail portion to the planned development, which ultimately was the key in securing funding and approval from city and state development agencies, Goldstein said.

Additionally, the developers wanted to give the project a classier look than a typical strip center and will spend $3 million to give the stores brick facades and a consistent aesthetic throughout the project. To achieve this, the group brought in Greenberg Fallow Architecture, Atlanta, to design the center.

Construction crews broke ground on Gateway Center last November, and it is scheduled to open in 2002. National retailers including Target, The Home Depot, Marshalls, Bed Bath & Beyond, Old Navy and Circuit City will anchor the center. The mall will have only sit-down family restaurants such as The Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Boulder Creek Steakhouse and other national chains.

“This will be an upscale retail center, not just another strip mall,” said Jeff Blau, president of The Related Cos., the New York City-based parent company of Related Retail Corp.

Because of the project’s location off the Belt Parkway, developers and neighborhood groups say they believe it will attract people from outside East New York, including shoppers from Queens and Long Island.

“We are expecting it to be a tremendously successful project with high volume,” Goldstein said. “We think it will draw from significant portions of Brooklyn and parts of Queens as well. We believe it’s unlike anything you see in any of the boroughs of New York City.”

Economically, the project is situated in a relatively strong market. With a per capita income of $22,549 in 1996 (the last year data was available), Kings County ranks 20th in the state out of 62 counties.

The project came about because of significant cooperation and contribution on the part of several New York City and state development and approval agencies.

“Gateway Center represents one of the largest investments in recent years in Kings County,” said Charles A. Gargano, chairman of Empire State Development, New York state’s economic development agency. “It will become an important asset to the surrounding community turning unused, government-owned land into a 640,000-square-foot retail center that will create jobs for area residents,” Gargano said.

The project also had the backing of New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which originally conceived the Gateway Center project in the 1980s. City Hall got behind the project as well, with New York City committing $51 million toward the retail and housing project.

The center’s developers expect it to generate more than $30 million in annual tax revenues to the city and state, and create more than 1,500 permanent jobs.

“This project will transform a long-vacant parcel of land into a major retail center that will generate long-term benefits for the local community,” New York State Office of General Services (OGS) Commissioner Joseph J. Seymour said in a statement. “In advancing Gov. [George] Pataki’s goal of finding productive uses for underutilized State properties, OGS worked closely with City officials and [Empire State Development Company] on this project, which will soon provide opportunities for borough residents as well as additional revenues for local tax rolls.”

Because part of the 230-acre site, which will eventually house the retail complex and the housing units, contained grasslands, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency required the developers to create new grasslands. Starrett first had to deal with the agencies nearly 10 years ago and came up with the plan for White Island in order to gain approval for the project.

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