The Brighton Neighborhood Association is hoping to make a bright new start — by moving out of its water-damaged storefront, which is slated for conversion into a medical facility, into offices three blocks away on Brighton Beach Avenue.
The organization — which helps find jobs and housing for more than 2,000 people each year and organizes the Brighton Jubilee Festival, a popular annual street fair — had rented the ground-floor office on Brighton Beach Avenue between Brighton 13th and Brighton 14th streets for the past 34 years.
But the arrangement fell apart after the development company Zproekt bought the building for $4.8 million in July of 2010, and threatened to evict the group earlier this year, according to its director, Pat Singer.
Calls to Zproekt to confirm the story were not returned.
Singer said she was given until Oct. 15 to move out, and that’s just as well: the office was damaged by a flood in May, destroying documents from three decades of social service work — and leaving Singer devastated.
“It was a nightmare,” Singer said of losing the records.
After recovering from the flood, Singer spent the summer trying to secure a new place.
The association will move into offices in the back of a Chase Manhattan branch on Brighton Beach Avenue between Brighton 11th Street and Coney Island Avenue where it already shares space with the Brighton Beach Business Improvement District.
Singer encouraged Brighton Beach residents to visit the new space once it opens next month.
“We want people to know we’re still here,” she said.
