Crown Heights Shadow Towers Site Bought By Developers: Report

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — The site of a hotly contested development near the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens was bought for tens of millions of dollars by two New York City developers whose plans for the site remain unclear, according to a new report.

Isaac Hager and Daryl Hagler bought 960 Franklin Ave. — the lot where Continuum Company tried and failed to to build a shadow-casting, 1,500-unit apartment complex — for $43 million, The Real Deal reports.

The former Spice Factory site was sold by Zev Golombeck, who first tried to sell the land to Continuum in 2017, to build two 39-story towers that spurred outrage in the neighborhood, according to Real Deal and previous Patch reports.

Even Mayor Bill de Blasio came out against the project.

But the City Planning Commission rejected the rezoning that would have made way for controversial apartment towers in September 2021.

The official vote came after developers, anticipating the vote, sued the city over the Planning Commission's review of a 17-story alternative to the original 34-story towers.

Golombeck pursued plans for a smaller building this past summer, filing plans to build a six-story building on the site, according to a Real Deal report from June.

Whether or not Hagler, of Centers Health Care, and Hager, of Cornell Realty, will pursue those plans remains unclear.

Read the Real Deal report here.