Brookfield Property Partners has set its sights on the South Bronx, paying $165M to the Chetrit Group and Keith Rubenstein’s Somerset Partners for a massive residential project in the area.

The 1.3M SF development is on two separate sites, the New York Post reports. The building at 101 Lincoln Ave. will feature 849 apartments and 2401 Third Ave. will have 404 units.

The entire development will have four retail stores, parking and in excess of 850 feet of a public esplanade along the river, according to the Post.

Brookfield Property Group’s chairman, Ric Clark, told told Bisnow this week that the company is banking on the multifamily market in the city, and will be targeting acquisition opportunities outside Manhattan.

“People are going to need a place to live, a place to work,” he said. “Could vacancy creep up a little bit in the short term? Sure. But we're a long-term investor and player.”

The firm already has the Eugene, a towering rental building that is part of its Manhattan West megaproject. It is also partnering with the Park Tower Group to develop units at the Greenpoint Landing project.

Somerset’s Rubenstein told The Real Deal the sale is a “good opportunity” for both sides, “for them to develop a large-scale property, for us to realize a profit on the land that we bought and studied and worked on for the last couple years."

Chetrit and Somerset paid $58M for the two sites, according to TRD, and broke ground on the development, which features seven buildings, last year.