This is the real estate shop where each episode will bring you a top industry expert to share their current programs or projects that are making an impact in our communities today.
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In this episode of the developers, we had the privilege of tag team and Erica Keller, chairperson and CEO of Brooklyn based brides of builders corporation and the Sean Allen Mohammed, executive director of central Brooklyn economic development corporation.
Let's join in. So how did you get into the industry? Walk us through your professional kind of maturation and how you became a leader. Good afternoon, everyone.
So I'm technically not in the real estate industry. I am a nonprofit leader who runs an economic development institution. So central Brooklyn economic development corporation is a 32 year old hyper local organization located in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn.
And CBDC as an institution was created by local activists and advocates to create an agency to provide a pathway forward towards self sufficiency for community residents.
Normally, you would find nonprofits like central Brooklyn in the real estate industry whereby based on the programs that they run, they may acquire assets, real estate, so on and so forth. Central Brooklyn hadn't
ventured into that arena per se until now. So this is pretty much our evolution in that in that process. And so it's just a natural evolution actually.
And so yeah, this is but this is our first joint venture project with the Glenmore Manta project working with Risa builders. So I would be remiss if I didn't say that I was born and raised in Brownsville.
And, you know, so about 20 something years ago, worked with a colleague to start a nonprofit organization called the Brownsville Youth Association.
And so that was my entree into the nonprofit sector. I'd already been, you know, working as a public servant with the New York City Health and Hospitals, but also always in the in the business of education, workforce development, so on and so forth.
And so when the nonprofit organization, when we started the nonprofit organization, brand new, grassroot starting, you know, so that was my experience venturing into the nonprofit sector. 20 plus years or so later, the Central Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation's
executive director was in the process of retiring and did not have someone to pass the baton to. And so I was also in a transition myself and, you know, sort of came into the agency as a volunteer.
But really, you know, the mission was to make sure that institutions so that's so important to Brownsville, like CBEDC, continue to keep their doors open. So I agreed to take on the role as ED six years ago.
And so that was pretty much, you know, started a startup nonprofit organization, which I swore I would never do again. It's very difficult 20 something years ago. And then, you know, taking the baton about six years ago at Central Brooklyn EDC.
Awesome. So you kind of grew up in an area, you know, about the needs of the community, you understand the fabric, the makeup, you understand where it's going. You give examples of some of the programs that may be instituted to spur economic development and maybe talk about that from, you know, maybe a workforce development to maybe commercial development as well from a real estate standpoint.
Absolutely. So the other thing that I want to note about the neighborhood and where we are. So I grew up in in NYCHA, right, New York City Housing, the New City Housing Authority, Tilden Houses, and in Brownsville, you have the largest concentration of public housing, they say in the country, but I've been to say in the world, there's no other place where there's such a concentration of public housing anywhere like Brownsville.
So with that being said, you know, I wanted to I wanted to make sure that I highlighted that point, because that's where I come from. Right. So I was fortunate to participate in a workforce program at 20 years old, where we were through NYCHA, where it was a youth development program.
And we went we went to school one week and we worked another week just to get experience working within the system. So that was my experience and how I pretty much got my first job on Wall Street. So and I say that to say, you know, your experience is really important and what really drives what you do moving forward.
And so the programs that we are running right now out of Central Brooklyn, we have an adult literacy program where we help community residents with, you know, obtaining a second opportunity to obtain their high school equivalency diploma.
And what we've done is we've incorporated a workforce development program in addition to that. Right. So when someone is in most our adults who have decided to go back to school, but as we all know, life gets in the way.
And a lot of times you find people who want to go back to school, but they have to work or they there's a child care issues.
And so we really try to build in mechanisms so that people are able to earn certificates and, you know, get access to job opportunities while they are learning. Right. So that's really important.
And so that also is connected to the work that we're doing with Risa Builders, because working with developers like Erica and others that are working in the community, we are able to get OSHA construction safety training sponsor.
So our students are able to get free job training and then access to jobs in the community.
So that's just an example of some of the work that we're doing within the within the organization. In addition to that, we also offer we have a business incubator program where we are.
And this is also very important when you look at the economy, the economics of a community. Right. Business is what drives the economy.
But when you look at our corridors, the people who are owning and operating those businesses do not live in the community. And so we are utilizing our business incubator to increase the number of local residents who will become business owners.
Right. Those local people who we also have a home ownership program in partnership with NACA. Right.
So we are helping people to get access to be able to become a home owner, to be through our incubator, to become a business owner.
And so that's what's so again, so important about this, the Beville Hub, because that space is it's a business center, right, where we are promoting entrepreneurship and innovation.
And so the programs that we're currently running feed into that.
And that's also in partnership with our academic partners, Mega Everest College School of Business and Howard University School of Business.
So we are partnering with business institutions to make sure that those who are going through the programs get access to formal business training to make sure that sustainability is in place.
Did you say Howard University? Howard University, the executive MBA program. Yes, I actually sit on the board.
OK. How do you know you broke that relationship?
Yeah, so it's interesting that that relationship was developed through Mega Everest College School of Business.
There's one of the lead entrepreneurship faculty, Dr. Michael Crump knows the head of Professor Ken Wells, the head of the executive MBA program.
And so based on our partnership, he introduced me to the Howard program, which actually sponsored me to get and become an executive coach.
So, you know, it's really important, you know, I want to emphasize the importance of relationships and how these so-called six degrees of separation,
which really is about to really work and why it's so important and critical to this process.
Eric, can you tell us about some of your second generation, tell us about some of the projects you guys have done and potentially in a pipeline and how you were able to make the connection in the partnership with the Lashon's organization.
So my father had a long history of, you know, relationships with faith based organizations and that's not for profit organizations to do the HUT202s.
And so that program started in the late 2000s, you know, around 2008, 2009.
That's when the last HUT202s were being built.
And so at that time, you know, faith leaders started to reach out to my father asking, you know, what other opportunities do they have to develop on parking lots and other properties that were owned in the city.
And so, you know, New York City under Mayor Bloomberg changed the tax laws so that churches that could no longer prove that they were using their property for religious purposes were then subject to taxation by the city.
And so at that point, there was a real push and many of the properties in that period between 2008, 2009 and 2012, 2013, many of them fell into arrears in reference to taxes and such.
And so, you know, when I joined the organization about 2012, there were a number of churches stopping by the offices every day to have conversations with my father for recommendations on how to deal with tax issues or issues of certificates of occupancy,
which are also things that faith-based organizations challenges that faith-based organizations face here in New York City.
And so it was a perfect storm in that de Blasio ran on an affordable housing ticket and was, you know, promoting faith-based organizations that were in distress and some that were not to really, you know, offer their properties for affordable housing.
And so I think what worked was that we had relationship again in the community and they were asking for help.
And so we formalized that process in that I was an educator, right.
And I was a principal before joining the family business.
And so I said, we need to organize this in a way that we're providing information, not on a one-off basis, but on a more comprehensive scale.
And in a way that makes sense that we're not talking developer language necessarily to a pastor who may or may not have had those experiences,
but we're talking in a way that is understandable to the church leadership and whoever else is making that decision as related to the development, the potential development of their properties and how that would benefit the sustainability of the organization in reference to the programming and other things that churches provide for the community.
And so we, you know, started holding voluntarily a monthly forum.
We received support from the borough president, Eric Adams, who at that time assigned his staff to provide technical assistance in reference to zoning analysis and surveys of, you know, the borough of Brooklyn, which is known as the borough of churches.
You know, there's a church, every other storefront on some blocks in the borough.
And so we were able to really, you know, work cohesively, use relationships, political support.
And out of those endeavors, there are approximately, you know, 1200 units of affordable housing that are going up around the city now or have been completed through those efforts of educating faith leaders on how they can use their property.
And in most instances, these were churches in the African-American community because many of them were independently run churches like Baptist churches tend to be some of the Pentecostals.
Some of them were of higher, you know, hierarchies or higher organizations, but they usually have structures in place that can provide those types of support.
And so we were able to, you know, again, give that education, give the support, the technical assistance to help these churches in many instances, again, distressed properties be utilized for the overall benefit of the community.
And, you know, that's that's been our most, I think, important service.
You know, we are a developer and developers sometimes get a bad rap, but we have always been very grassroots and very connected to the community and very much wanting to use the government programs that are supposedly there to provide supports to the next level, to really use it in the way as such.
I think over the years and historically they have become barriers of economic mobility and for African-American people in particular, and not the doors of opportunity upon which they were first created.
As Lestron mentioned, you know, there is a very high concentration of public housing in Brownsville, but years ago in specific areas in Brooklyn, these were areas where you saw immigrant families coming in, staying there for a while and being able to move out and purchase properties and such.
Unfortunately, as African-Americans then were able to come in and take advantage of those opportunities, there wasn't that same push forward.
And so even myself now and looking at the low income housing tax credit program, I'm evaluating the work that we do.
And I'm saying, is the narrative the same eight years ago that I have today and probably not. And that is because I was a strong advocate for deep affordability.
You know, 60 percent AMI and below is what you need for a 100 percent tax credit project.
However, I recognize now that that might not necessarily be the most opportunistic way in which to utilize that program to provide affordable housing so that people are not spending more than a certain amount and can use their economics for other measures.
Right.
But now, how do we organize the policies and the laws and the regulations so that it really doesn't become a secular process, that it really is a platform by which to enhance the the the economic opportunity of that individual who is using the program as a way in which to grow.
Right. Because we're going to keep certifying people in the same income bracket. It doesn't make sense. Right.
And so also, does it make sense to continuously support a rental market and not create real affordability for home ownership that can then ways create a platform by which people can grow and move on.
And so I think my own narrative has changed as I begin to evaluate what are the services that we're providing to the community and how do we use this in a way that, you know, helps the economic growth of a particular group that has been disenfranchised.
And I think this project is a key example of that, you know, the whole premise of the RFP was out of a community visioning study. And so the community worked with HPD for a year before the release of the RFP to identify areas of additional need and support to help Brownsville move into the 21st century, as other neighborhoods have.
And so, you know, there were three large lots that were identified. One, you know, was identified as needing or wanting to provide arts and culture for the community.
And so, therefore, any proposal had to infuse arts and culture as part of the overall housing development.
The site that we won was innovation and entrepreneurship. And that was the genesis of our relationship with Central Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation to say, how do we now take the services, the GED, the education, and how do we take that to the next level in reference to financial literacy and entrepreneurial incubation and programming with higher education institutions and bring that to the Brownsville community.
And then the last site was identified as health and wellness. And so, again, you know, horticulture and healthy living and eating was a key component of that proposal and very necessary in the community, you know, because you will see a Burger King every other block, right.
But where do we we want to see more community gardens and fresh fruits being grown and sold.
And so I think there's a lot of work to be done, but I think this project is a key example of how we can work together to provide affordability that could be a platform for continued growth, as well as other ancillary services.
In support of that ideology.
That sounds great. And I know, LaShawn, we connected on LinkedIn. We talked about this great project a couple times before.
And I know there's a couple different components to it. Specifically, what does the project entail in terms of, say, number of units for affordable?
What is the actual master development look like? Because I know Erica is involved in, I guess, the residential side. I think you mentioned that you're involved in commercial. How does that all come together? And what does it look like?
So Erica can speak to the housing mix, you know, on that side.
What I can speak about is the 8,000 square feet of space that Erica mentioned that we will be programming and what that will create pretty much is an anchor for the community where we now have.
So it'll be the first business center ever created in Brownsville, and it will encompass conference rooms, classrooms, space for cooperative working spaces, space for our business incubation programs.
And so that pretty much describes what the business side looks like and where we will now have a place for community residents to come and get support, not just to build their capacity and start their businesses, but to also get access to capital.
There will also be a credit union in the commercial space of the building as well. And so that's a really key. That was key to the strategy, you know, to make sure that all the pieces are in place to provide the community with access that did not exist before.
And then Erica, how many units of not just affordable housing, but just residential housing are you providing and what does your unit mix look like?
So there's 233 units in the building in totality. 232 units are available. There'll be one non income producing super units. So the building will have a 24 hour residential sprint.
We have a what we're using, we had to rezone the site. And so we are using what they refer to as the airs bonus in New York City, where 16 of the units will be set aside for seniors at AMIs at 50% and below.
And then we have set aside for a 30% set aside for formerly homeless. So 70% of the 70 units will be for single adults and young adults with families.
And so we have what they refer to as a 1515 subsidy award from New York City's Human Resource Administration to support those tenants as well as all of the tenants in the building. So because of that, we will have a full time social worker on board, a case worker.
There are added amenities that the building can now have as a result of that programming when we have a fitness room and a computer. And, you know, there's outdoor decking in the back for family and congregants.
There's about 9500 square feet there we're able to have. There will be on site social worker and case worker that will have offices for counseling and other sorts of support. And then we also will have the availability to have the property manager on board as well.
So we can sort of delineate between those who may be having some difficulties in whatever areas as related to finances, which may impact their, their rents and separate that right from from the actual rent collection and such with a separate property management company.
So, in addition to those residential amenities and the residential component. We have central Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation on the second floor of what we're referring to as the Beville hub, where we put a lot of design and making this very much a downtown Brooklyn
look, or, you know, downtown Manhattan look where we have blazing and we have, you know, two story vaulted entrances.
Then on the ground floor we have the credit union which there has always been a dearth of banking institutions in Brownsville for the last 50 to 60 years so we're bringing a credit union in that has this will be their fourth location they have a history of providing education and financial literacy to
to inner city communities. We have a partnership with a restaurant that will be brought into the community as well this will be their third location which they have already existing successful operations in another affordable housing Brooklyn in the neighborhood not
only a highway, and as well as a hospital, where they provide a cafeteria for for the staff at a local hospital in Brooklyn, and we are last is actually another organization that was grown in Brownsville it's group of women that not for
profit organization, and that not for profit organization will open up for profit arm to support the health and wellness activities that the not for profit has and then the not for profit will have some space upstairs in the community facility component to provide continued
education and support student not for profit arm. So, again, we're you know hands on providing opportunity for businesses in the community to continue to grow.
And then through central both an economic development corporation we will, there will be an opportunity for continued incubation and services, we're also looking for there's been some conversation about having a radio station here.
We're looking for some space to for podcasts and other sorts of media communication that we think would be great to have centrally located coming out of Brooklyn, Brooklyn's going through revitalization.
So, what's your guys safeguard against displacement, as you look at your program and and particularly what you're looking, you know what you guys do in terms of development.
I chuckle a little bit because the short and I have had, you know, conversation about, you know, gentrification right and and that is technically considered a negative word, but I that we have to think of it in a way of how do we look to the positive
components of that in in grow our neighborhood right because, in essence, it is a negative right it's, it's a neighborhood property values being driven down, so that it could be, you know, reinvested in so to say at a very low valuation.
And so we want to, but however when it's driven down and people come in and purchase at a very low evaluation valuation. When they do make those purchases then the, the, the outgrowth of that is to build a neighborhood backup and you see, you know improvements
in reference in reference to the schooling and in reference to the policing and all the other social services and you see interest of you know you see the value start to escalate and you see interest in reference to businesses and such.
So how do we capture the positive outgrowth of that very diabolical cycle, so that you're not pushing people out but they get the benefit of the improvements that are coming to a particular community that has been driven down over the years, and so it's
it's a delicate balance from our perspective to ensure that there are affordable developments that are built in the neighborhoods that are being gentrified and so it's very key to we targeted specifically churches in, you know, central Brooklyn
and the Bed-Stuy area that we knew were being be gentrified and gentrified, you know, five years ago four years ago to say how important it is to offer affordability so that people who have been here when it wasn't so great to live in Brooklyn, still have
the opportunity to enjoy the amenities and the change that has been happening to this borough over the last, you know, 10 years 10 to 15 years so we were very strategic and trying to partner with churches some of it had been successful some of it we weren't
able to get done but there's been other opportunities of their of such to develop and make sure that there is this balance that happens, so that people still have an opportunity to to to benefit from the changes in the community.
And so I think in that instance it's very important to advocate for deep affordability and affordability in areas that we see have been targeted for gentrification and where gentrification has happened.
Unfortunately we didn't have those types of relationships in Harlem, where again I think that same push needed to be made to ensure that there's a balance, and that there's a range of, you know, opportunity for people to stay as new people are going to come in because once
that has happened, it's very difficult to stop it in entirety, but I think there are ways in which you can, you know, ensure that there's fairness in who will benefit from the from the improvements that are happening.
You know, another approach from a political standpoint is there have been electives that we are very close with who have put up barriers who have decided that they are going to mandate that new developments have a particular levels of affordability to
ensure that the people who live in the community can access those housing opportunities because they know that they have relationship they have family this is where they have been. And so we also support those endeavors as well.
You know, we don't want to say who people cannot come in but I think there does need to be some protections in whatever ways possible in order to ensure that everyone.
Those who have been there can benefit from the benefits that are happening for community because, you know, better schools infrastructure being worked on and attended to safety lighting more policing, all of those things are things we want to happen for every
person. And so if those things are happening, you want to make sure that the people that live there, when it wasn't good infrastructure when it wasn't good schools, when you're worried, you know, preventative police being in a community building.
You want to make sure that they have access to the things that they exist, and are not pushed out.
So from a timeline perspective where you guys at in the development is anything scheduled to break ground or.
So we have. So, the pandemic.
Has created somewhat of a backlog, in which the city was already experiencing because the mayor had run on, you know, an affordable housing ticket we had a number of projects ramping up over the last eight years so we were already experiencing a bit of more proposals
about how cities subsidies really exists to support and with the pandemic hitting that just sort of compounded it. So if you price that was slated to close last year, and even the tail end of 2019 will pushed, pushed, 2020 and then with the pandemic
2021 and 2022. So we're experiencing backlog. We do have probably about 500 units between
Glenmore Manor as well as some other projects that are slated to close within the next 18
months. And then on the tail end of that in terms of projects that are completing construction,
we were pretty much able to keep going through the pandemic because affordable housing was
considered an essential construction. However, the ancillary support services that we need,
there was some slowdown in reference to forests and people actually getting ill and such.
But there's been volatility now in reference to the market where kitchen cabinets were
delayed in terms of manufacturing and being able to install them. And the utilities are
a big issue here because there's a backlog in New York. So we actually have a building
waiting for 197 residents, we actually have a TCO, but we do not have permanent power.
And so we cannot move tenants in until power and as you know, how important that is for
a lie tech that once you have to see to get those tenants in the building. So yeah, staying
to keep it and to keep people you know, keep this property covered.
Yeah, that becomes a tax credit adjusted issue with the whole time. Yeah, yep. It's the reason
why I don't have too much here. Where do you see central Brooklyn and Brownsville at five
years from now? You mean as an agency? As a community, just the benefits of what you're
doing. You know, the potential of gentrification just where where do you see that is going
to be a different neighborhood than it is now? I'm doing similar stuff in the Philadelphia
that's equally as blighted. It is like, okay, what place look like at the end of the day?
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I also chuckled around the word gentrification. Actually,
Erica myself, Nea Rock, and forgive me, I'm sorry, it's a banker and Valerie White from
LISC were all part of and Dionne Graham from we ran Brownsville, we were all part of a
panel discussion. And we the topic was redefining gentrification. So that's the space of the
city that I love to be in. Right. And so we talk about this all the time. And central
Brooklyn and five years will be look at the landscape will look very different. You'll
see more buildings like this being built. But if we have anything to do with it, right,
which we will, you will see the people as Erica mentioned, who currently live there
in these spaces working, living, you know, prayerfully laughing, right and not being,
you know, having a real quality of life. And that's what we really want to make sure that
this work that we're doing will move the needle on poverty, you'll see more people employed,
you know, we're doing a lot of work around the supporting the workforce, as I mentioned
earlier with the OSHA training, the trades training. And so like be working with our
community board, we have to state this, I know we were wrapping up, but we are literally
building the infrastructure in the community that needs to be in place to make sure that
community residents are not displaced. So working with our local city hall, we like
to refer to community board 16 in Brownsville as to, so they've created a structure where
now central Brooklyn has an agency is working with all of the developers to create community
benefit agreements, to ensure that there is funding available to support the training.
We also have now been supported by foundations. So we get funding from Robin Hood, through
the economic mobility labs initiative that is supporting the work that needs to happen
to build a pipeline for the people who will be served by the Beville hub, right. And so,
and we actually call it the Brownsville hub cooperative. That's critical, right. And as
well as we're getting support from the New York women's foundation supporting our entrepreneurship
efforts, specifically around women and all of this, you know, work will, we will see
the impacts five years from now. And the last thing I wanted to say is regarding the work
and how Eric and I began working together, Erica mentioned that there was this process,
year long planning process, right. And one of the, towards the end of that process, nonprofit
organizations were, there was an event where we had the opportunity to meet with all the
potential developers and you could literally as a nonprofit be part of anybody's application,
right. It's like, you know, try to get in where you fit in. And I was adamant Erica
was the only black woman developer within the whole group of people who were, who was
planning to submit a proposal and she was the only person that we wanted to work with.
That was, so that was intentional. So we, and I saw, I'm saying that as an example,
we are very intentional about this work and what we're doing and creating the strategy
to make sure that we are successful.
No, I thank you for the opportunity to have this conversation and I look forward to the
continued evolution of low income housing tax credits so that it really brings about
economic empowerment, particularly for people of color. So pleasure to meet all of you.