Arrow Linen Was Capped at 10 Stories. Why Is It Now Four Buildings Instead of Two?

The Arrow Linen deal limited how tall the buildings could be. It never limited how many buildings there could be. In February 2025 the City Council approved two 10-story buildings with 250 apartments on the former laundry site at Prospect Avenue and Windsor Place. In summer 2026 a new developer filed plans for four 10-story buildings with 396 apartments. The height cap held. Almost everything else changed, and the paperwork allows it.

Anyone weighing a townhouse on the western blocks of Windsor Terrace now has a question the rezoning headlines never answered. What actually binds this site? Three numbers do: the wording of a community benefits agreement, a 100-unit line in state tax law, and a $55 million purchase price. Each one pushes toward more, smaller buildings.

The site, and the plan that was approved

NYC Planning puts the project on Block 1113. It is bounded by Prospect Avenue and Windsor Place and runs between Eighth Avenue and Prospect Park West. The city's documents place it in Windsor Terrace. News coverage has called it Park Slope, Windsor Terrace and South Slope at different times. The site wraps around a short row of houses in a U-shape. One of those houses was rezoned along with the industrial parcels.

The rezoning took more than a year. Community Board 7 voted 30 to 6 in September 2024 to recommend disapproval. The City Council passed it on February 27, 2025, with an R7A designation and a revised plan of two buildings, 250 units, and 100 affordable apartments, which is a 40 percent share.

Here is how the 2025 plan compares with what was filed in 2026:

The developer did not cut the affordable count. It held that number steady and added more market-rate units around it. Each column follows from what the binding documents say and what they leave out.

What the agreement fixed, and what it left open

The developer's 2025 promises lived in two places. Council Member Shahana Hanif and the Fifth Avenue Committee signed a legally binding community benefits agreement with the Magliocco family, who owned Arrow Linen. Brownstoner's reading of that agreement found that it caps buildings at 10 stories. It does not say how many 10-story buildings or apartments the site can hold. It sets 100 affordable units rather than a 40 percent share, and it says nothing about unit size.

The affordable units have to follow Mandatory Inclusionary Housing Option 1. Under NYC Planning's description of MIH, that means 25 percent of residential floor area kept permanently affordable at a weighted average of 60 percent of Area Median Income, with at least 10 percent of floor area at 40 percent of AMI. The city requires at least 25 percent affordability on any project that benefits from a rezoning. Goose's plan meets both that rule and the agreement's wording.

The arithmetic follows from that. With a fixed count of 100 affordable units and no cap on total units, every market-rate apartment added lowers the affordable share. At 396 units, 100 affordable apartments come to about 25 percent, right at the citywide floor.

The other cells in the table depend on rules the agreement never touched.

The 100-unit line in state tax law

New York's 485-x property tax incentive sets a construction wage floor at 100 units. Under the statute, an eligible site with 100 or more units has to pay at least $40 an hour in wages and supplements, rising 2.5 percent each July starting July 1, 2025. Sites of 150 or more units in the law's Zone A and Zone B face higher floors still.

That explains 99. The Real Deal reported that Goose appears positioned to avoid the wage floor by dividing the project into four 99-unit buildings on the lot rather than building one large one. It also noted that developers across the city have been placing 99-unit buildings next to each other for the same reason. The threshold explains the four-building design too. Two buildings holding the same 396 units would each pass both the 100-unit and the 150-unit marks.

The statute does leave room for doubt. It defines an "eligible site" as either a tax lot containing a qualifying building, or a zoning lot containing two or more qualifying buildings that are part of a single application. So whether four 99-unit buildings are treated as four sites or one depends on how the lots and benefit applications are structured. None of the reporting establishes that for this block. The 99-unit design is the developer's apparent intent. How the city treats it is still an open question.

What $55 million means per apartment

The third number is the land price. Goose Property Management, led by Yitzchok Katz, paid $55 million for 441–467 Prospect Avenue, as Commercial Observer reported in late September 2026. According to The Real Deal, the family business had cooled on building with Apex.

Spread over the approved 250 units, $55 million comes to about $220,000 of land per apartment. Spread over 396 units, it comes to about $139,000. The building heights are the same. The difference comes from fitting more units under the same cap, and those savings grow when the affordable count stays at 100.

Apex's representative told Brownstoner that "effectively, the economics didn't work for us," and described projects across the city that cannot get bank financing. So the 250-unit plan could not get financed for one developer. The 396-unit plan is the version a second developer filed after buying the land. A wage threshold, a fixed affordable count and a lower land cost per unit all favor the same design.

Where it stands as of early October 2026

The reporting does not support calling this an active construction project yet:

• Permits. As of the September 1 reports, none of the new-building permits for 447, 449, 467 Rear and 469 Prospect Avenue had been issued. Demolition permits for a two-story and a three-story building were approved but not issued. No later report found shows that this has changed.
• Design. The filings describe four buildings of 99 units each, 10 stories plus a cellar, 198 bike parking spaces in total, and a rooftop recreation area. Hamish Whitefield Architects P.C. is listed as architect of record.
• Timing. Brownstoner reported that construction is slated to start this year, with no firm date.
• Affordability. Hanif has said she told Goose that the agreement "is the floor." Her office and the Fifth Avenue Committee have said they will hold the project to its commitments. The Real Deal reported that talks over the affordable count were still going on as of September 30. Housing Not Highrises, which pushed for a smaller project during the rezoning, has described the council member as the community's remaining source of leverage.
• October 7. A third-party contractor struck a high-pressure gas main in front of 467 Prospect Avenue. Eight nearby buildings were evacuated, no injuries were reported, and FDNY said the leak was under control that afternoon. News 12 Brooklyn reported that the Department of Buildings was not called to the scene.

One discrepancy is worth flagging. The Real Deal's September 30 article calls it a 250-unit project in its opening line and then describes 396 units further down. The DOB filings described by Brownstoner and Brooklyn Paper show 396.

For a townhouse on the surrounding blocks, the settled facts are the 10-story height cap, the R7A zoning, and a floor of 100 affordable units. The number of buildings, the unit sizes, the final affordable share and the start date are all still open. They depend on negotiation, permit review, and how the city reads one definition in the tax law.

A few distinct questions

Is the site in Windsor Terrace or Park Slope? NYC Planning places Block 1113 in Windsor Terrace. Brownstoner files its coverage under Park Slope, and Housing Not Highrises uses "South Slope/Windsor Terrace." The block sits at the point where those names overlap.

Could the building count still change? The agreement caps height but not building count. Any change to the four-building plan would most likely come through the affordability negotiations or through permit review. None of the reporting through October 8, 2026 indicates a revised filing.

Does 485-x require four separate buildings? No. The wage floor applies to an "eligible site" with 100 or more units. Whether four adjacent 99-unit buildings count as separate sites depends on how the tax lots, zoning lot and applications are structured, and no source has reported those details for this project.

If you own a townhouse near Prospect Avenue and Windsor Place, a 10-story neighbor is only part of the picture. Which parts of the project are fixed and which are still open both matter to a valuation. Paul Murphy tracks these blocks building by building in the quarterly Brooklyn Townhouse Report. Request a valuation of your townhouse, or subscribe to follow how Arrow Linen moves from filings to permits.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.