GFI Development has sold the long-term leasehold of 810 Fulton St in Brooklyn to RXR Realty for $28.7M, clearing the way for the firm's first ground-up residential development.

After repositioning the 10-story, 650k SF vacant telecom hotel at 470 Vanderbilt the next lot over as an office property for the likes of the NYC Human Resources Administration, the League Education and Treatment Center, and the NYC Housing Authority, GFI transferred the property's air rights to allow RXR to develop a 363-unit, 328k SF residential tower with 33k SF of retail and below-grade parking. The project qualifies for the lapsed 421-a abatement.

Acquiring leasehold interest of the full city block in 2007, GFI worked to increase 810 Fulton’s buildable square footage. Slated to bring market-rate and affordable housing to a fast-growing area of Brooklyn, the project had its Uniform Land Use Review Procedure application approved by the City Planning Commission and the City Council in 2009.

Initial site work began in 2015, and Broadway Construction Group will start construction this fall, with leasing starting in 2018. RXR has acquired more than 2M SF of commercial space—including Long Island City’s Standard Motor Products building, 47 Hall St and 470 Vanderbilt, which it bought from GFI for $195M in 2014—as part of its New York Metro Emerging Sub-Market initiative, which invests in undervalued neighborhoods with strong transit infrastructure and huge upside. Under the program, RXR has a pipeline of over 3,000 residential units in New Rochelle, Yonkers, Stamford, Glen Cove, Hempstead and Huntington Station.

RXR CEO Scott Rechler says the firm has now turned its eye towards Fort Greene, which has seen a development wave including the Barclays Center and the Pacific Park mixed-use project.