{"id":372212,"date":"2026-10-13T19:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T19:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/372212\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T19:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T19:12:11","slug":"rent-freeze-and-fulton-street-development-dominate-brooklyn-panel-discussions-commercial-observer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/372212\/","title":{"rendered":"Rent Freeze and Fulton Street Development Dominate Brooklyn Panel Discussions \u2013 Commercial Observer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brooklyn was the only topic at a Thursday event that investment sales brokerage TerraCRG<\/a> sponsored, with Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s rent freeze and a retail revival on Fulton Street the topics of the day.<\/p>\n

The Only Brooklyn Real Estate Conference at BRIC (formerly known as Brooklyn Information & Culture), at 647 Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn, started off with words from Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning Leila Bozorg.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO: The Plan: The Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s New Modern and Contemporary Wing Goes Big<\/a><\/p>\n

In a keynote address, Bozorg spoke about how the city is entering a new era of housing development as the expedited land use review procedure (ELURP) takes hold in 12 City Council districts.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver half of the city\u2019s renters are rent-burdened, meaning they pay more than 30 percent of their income towards rent, and a large share are paying 50 percent of their income towards rent,\u201d Bozorg said. \u201cThe impacts of this crisis are pretty heartbreaking: people deferring dreams, deferring family formation, increasing homelessness, families accepting overcrowded or unsafe conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mamdani administration is addressing the problem through programs like \u201cBlock-by-Block: The Housing Plan for New Era,\u201d<\/a> a $5.6 billion plan to create 200,000 new affordable homes and preserve another 200,000.<\/p>\n

The first of two panels, the \u201cFuture of Brooklyn Multifamily,\u201d was moderated by Commercial Observer Editor-in-Chief Max Gross, with speakers including Z+G Property Group<\/a>\u2019s Jay Greenberg, Camber Property Group<\/a>\u2019s Rick Gropper, TerraCRG\u2019s Matthew Cosentino and PH Realty Capital\u2019s Peter Hungerford.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s rent freeze, which went into effect\u00a0 Oct. 1, was a big topic with panelists, who doubted the legality of the decision by the Rent Guidelines Board as it faces a lawsuit and anticipated major downsides for the affordable housing market.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I was the mayor and I wanted to push that, I would have manipulated it and made it a half a point increase or 1-and-a-half point increase,\u201d Cosentino said. \u201cI think it\u2019s gonna be found unlawful, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s gonna make a big difference. If it\u2019s a 1 percent increase and you own thousands of units, I think maybe it helps, but I think even if it\u2019s found unlawful, it\u2019s not going to be a substantial enough increase to make a big difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second panel, the \u201cDowntown Brooklyn Market Boom,\u201d was moderated by MNS Real Estate<\/a>\u2019s Andrew Barrocas. Speakers included Lonicera Partners<\/a>\u2019 Jamie Anthony, Alloy<\/a>\u2019s Jared Della Valle, United American Land<\/a>\u2019s Albert Laboz and TerraCRG\u2019s Dan Marks.<\/p>\n

Laboz spoke extensively about his 40-year career in Downtown Brooklyn, which is experiencing a retail revival with a former Macy\u2019s building at 422 Fulton Street becoming a four-story retail atrium. The 440,000-square-foot entertainment complex will be known as BKX.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think once this is developed, it\u2019s really going to be a catalyst for change on Fulton Street,\u201d Laboz said. \u201cI could get T.J. Maxx or Ross Dress for Less to lease space tomorrow, there\u2019s nothing wrong with those tenants, I\u2019ll [lease space to] them anywhere else except in this particular location.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brooklyn was the only topic at a Thursday event that investment sales brokerage TerraCRG sponsored, with Mayor Zohran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98486,137085,110330,82807,2898,98,100,99,5012,2184,2907,137086,7833,49413,39028,137087,9,24,63,137088,1413,7831,28793],"class_list":["post-372212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-422-fulton-street","tag-647-fulton-street","tag-albert-laboz","tag-andrew-barrocas","tag-antonio-reynoso","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-dan-marks","tag-development","tag-housing","tag-jamie-anthony","tag-jared-della-valle","tag-jay-greenberg","tag-leila-bozorg","tag-matthew-cosentino","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-peter-hungerford","tag-policy","tag-rick-gropper","tag-zohran-mamdani-channel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}