Picture it, 2004.
George W. Bush is reelected. Usher’s “Yeah!” is blasting on the radio as you drive to the movie theater to see Shrek 2. The jeans are low, and the tensions between Disney stars are high. And Blue Diamond Development pays $800,000 for a lot at 55 Eckford Street.
More than 20 years, millions stolen in a scheme to defraud clients, and one lawsuit from the Attorney General’s office later, the project might finally be moving forward.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation just announced a proposed remediation plan for the long-vacant site, as developers plan to build a five-story luxury condo. They are accepting public comment until April 19.
“In the early 1900s, the site was used for woodworking, and from roughly 1951 to 1992, electric plating and lacquer spraying, according to NYSDEC,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle reports. “State agencies determined the site poses a ‘significant threat’ to public health or the environment, based on contaminants found in its groundwater and soil vapor.”
The construction beams at 55 Eckford stand sadly as plenty of projects have come and gone in the meantime. Blue Diamond started construction in 2005, but soon ran out of money. The project has stalled as ownership changed hands multiple times, eventually making its way to Eckford-Greenpoint LLC.
55 Eckford took another dramatic turn in 2022 when the LLC’s owner, real estate developer Xi “Steve” Hui Wu, vanished with millions of dollars he allegedly embezzled from multiple Chinese immigrant families he had been working with in Bay Ridge, prompting a lawsuit from the State Attorney General’s office.
In 2024, Daniel Kaykov and Val Katayev of Poise Property Group purchased the lot for $7.2 million at a foreclosure auction, with the hopes of turning it into “bougie condos” (their words, not mine).
They have a long road ahead of them, considering how long an environmental remediation can take, especially in Greenpoint.
“Luxury condo”…..catering to elitist gentrifiers and nothing for the average working people who are the backbone of the community. I can’t wait for the next round of articles about the openings of new, pretentious and obscenely expensive bars, lounges, restaurants and cheesy boutiques that will be out of business within five years or less.