A developer’s controversial plan to build a Home Depot above a railyard on the border of Sunset Park and Bay Ridge has been abandoned until the economy rebounds.
Developer Andrew Kohen told The Brooklyn Paper this week that he can’t move forward with his 11-story building — which includes the 100,000-square-foot superstore, 216 apartments and office space — until the market recovers.
“We are waiting and hoping for the economic environment to improve,” said Kohen, whose project initially faced opposition from Community Board 10 because of its size.
In the end, though, the board last July approved Kohen’s plan for the corner of 62nd Street and Eighth Avenue.
But then, the economy slowed.
Kohen’s development joins a number of higher-profile projects that have stalled in the aftermath of the sub-prime mortgage crisis.
Bruce Ratner has struggled to save his ailing Atlantic Yards project near Downtown Brooklyn. The cost of the basketball arena has more than doubled to $950 million, an anchor tenant has not come forward for the iconic Miss Brooklyn tower, and the developer now says only one of his original 16 skyscrapers remains in the once $4-billion plan.
And this week, developer and mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis announced that he had eliminated affordable units in his 660-unit project on Myrtle Avenue in Fort Greene because of the credit crisis.
Nonetheless, Kohen is confident that the market will recover and he will build the Home Depot.
“I’m an optimistic person,” he said. “I always see the glass as half full.”
