CROWN HEIGHTS — A local bank branch sold its building on the corner of two of neighborhood’s busiest thoroughfares in December, sale records show.
The one-story Carver Federal Savings Bank building at 1009 Nostrand Ave. and Empire Boulevard was purchased for $2.4 million on Dec. 30, deeds show.
The buyer is 1015 Nostrand LLC according to records; a first report about the sale from the Commercial Observer said the buyer is 3M Management.
Zoning rules on the lot say there are no specific height limits for the property, given enough open space on the ground. However, the buyer is barred from building on the site for at least ten years, according to a lease agreement with Carver.
At the time of the sale, the bank — which was founded in 1948 to provide financial services to African-American communities — signed a 10-year lease with the buyer to remain in a portion of the building.
Further, the lease agreement stipulates that, during the term of the lease, the owner “has waived its right to build additional stories on the building” or “to make alterations and additions to the building in preparation of building additional stories.”
Empire Boulevard has been at the center of an intense debate over possible changes to zoning rules in Crown Heights to limit development in the neighborhood. That conversation has effectively stalled at the local community board amid pressure from activists and residents in the neighborhood.
The broker on the Carver bank deal said the Nostrand Avenue property is part of a “hot zone” in the area.
“We went directly to owners and buyers in a specific geographic ‘hot zone’ within the neighborhood and helped them see the incredible value this opportunity provided,” Peter DeChester of Colliers International said in a press release according to the magazine.
The 3,500-square-foot bank building was built in 1928, city records show. It has served as a bank since at least 1984, according to property documents.
