960 Franklin Avenue: Botanic Heights Rises Where Towers Were Rejected
Botanic Heights, the seven-story, 290-unit building now standing at 960 Franklin Avenue, began leasing in April 2026, with units already rented by May 2026. A lottery for 91 income-restricted apartments at 130% AMI (qualifying incomes $106,766–$238,160) launched in June 2026 — putting real housing on a site that spent the better part of five years as the flashpoint of one of Brooklyn’s most closely watched rezoning fights.
At a Glance
- A seven-story, 290-unit as-of-right rental building, branded Botanic Heights, on a site that once drew a rejected 39-story rezoning proposal.
- Built by YS Developers/Yitzchok Schwartz, who acquired the site for a reported $64 million in 2024, after two prior owners and two abandoned plans.
- Sits roughly 150 feet from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, whose shadow concerns helped sink the original 2020-2021 tower proposal.
- 91 of the 290 units are income-restricted at 130% AMI, offered through a June 2026 housing lottery.
What Is 960 Franklin Avenue?
960 Franklin Avenue is a seven-story, 290-unit apartment building in Crown Heights, branded Botanic Heights, built as-of-right by YS Developers — a company tied to Yitzchok Schwartz — on a site that sits roughly 150 feet from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
The building that exists today is the third distinct plan for this address in six years. Reading older coverage of “the Spice Factory site” or “the Botanic Garden towers” without knowing that history can be genuinely confusing — different articles describe a 39-story supertall, a 293-unit mid-rise, and a 290-unit rental, and they’re not contradicting each other so much as describing three different projects, in sequence, on the same lot.
Era One: A Rejected Supertall Rezoning (2019–2021)
The site’s modern development story starts with developer Continuum Company, led by Bruce Eichner, which proposed two towers reported at roughly 39 stories and 420 to 424 feet — figures that vary somewhat across sources, with a later retrospective describing the plan more loosely as “over 30 stories.” Reported unit counts vary too: one contemporaneous account cites developers’ own claim of 700 affordable units, while a later retrospective cites more than 1,500 total apartments — likely referring to different plan iterations or affordable-only versus total figures, not independently reconciled here.
Continuum partnered with New Jersey-based Lincoln Equities Group on the proposal. Continuum’s purchase of 960 Franklin Avenue was contingent on winning a rezoning; the company never owned the site outright at this stage.
In November 2020, a New York State Supreme Court judge issued a temporary restraining order halting the city’s certification of the rezoning, on allegations the Department of City Planning had failed to publish required documentation. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden organized opposition it called “Fight for Sunlight,” joined by neighborhood groups including the Municipal Art Society; the Garden warned the towers would block hours of sunlight to its 23 conservatories, greenhouses, and nurseries, which grow plants for the entire 52-acre Garden site and its community programs.
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Flatbush Avenue entrance — the institution whose shadow concerns shaped this site’s development history. Photo by Jim.henderson via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.
Brooklyn Community Board 9 voted 23 to 2 against the rezoning in an advisory vote, and in September 2021, the City Planning Commission voted unanimously to reject it outright, calling it “grossly out of scale.” Continuum’s contingent purchase fell through, and the site remained with its existing owner.
Era Two: An As-Of-Right Pivot (2021–2024)
After the rezoning collapsed, the site was owned by Abraham Zev Golombeck, a spice importer — the site’s prior industrial use, a spice-importing warehouse inside the former Consumers Park Brewing Company building, is the origin of “the Spice Factory site” name that stuck to this whole saga.
By June 2022, Golombeck’s team had filed plans for a six-story, 293-unit building requiring no rezoning at all. This is the pivot that actually determined the site’s future: once a supertall needed City Planning Commission approval it could not get, an as-of-right mid-rise became the only guaranteed path to building anything.
Era Three: Botanic Heights Is Built (2024–2026)
YS Developers, tied to Yitzchok Schwartz, acquired 960 Franklin Avenue around May 2024 for a reported $64 million. Architect Hamish Whitefield’s design grew slightly from the 2022 filing, to the current seven-story, 290-unit building.
Foundations were underway by March 2025, and leasing began April 24, 2026. The finished building totals roughly 240,000 square feet, with a cellar level and on-site parking for 145 vehicles. Amenities include a doorman, elevator, in-building laundry, a courtyard, a roof deck, assigned parking, and a gym. A lottery for 91 income-restricted units at 130% AMI launched in June 2026, with applications due July 2, 2026.
What We Couldn’t Pin Down: Condo or Rental?
In August 2025, The Real Deal reported that Schwartz had filed a condominium offering plan with the New York Attorney General, describing roughly 300 units and a $273 million projected sellout. By 2026, coverage of the actual leasing and lottery describes 290 rental apartments — a mechanism (an income-restricted lottery tied to a regulatory agreement) far more typical of rentals than condos.
Hush Street could not independently resolve, within the available reporting, whether the project pivoted from condo to rental sometime after August 2025, or whether the condo framing was itself imprecise. Both figures are reported here rather than picking one.
Not to Be Confused With: 962-972 Franklin Avenue
Directly adjacent to this building sits 962-972 Franklin Avenue — a separate parcel, also once targeted by Continuum Company, that ran its own, later, and still-evolving version of essentially the same fight. In 2024, Continuum filed a revised, smaller rezoning for that site (reported at 145 feet, 14 stories, 475 apartments), which shrank further after a deal with Council Member Crystal Hudson to 355 apartments with 30% income-restricted units and a reduced garden-facing slope. Continuum then sold that site for $54.3 million to Isaac Schwartz in September 2025, exiting the project.
The two addresses are legally and developmentally distinct today, with different owners and different outcomes — but years of press coverage using shorthand like “the Spice Factory site” for both parcels is exactly why a reader researching this address may run into facts that actually belong to its neighbor.
Timeline
Later used as a spice-importing warehouse -- the source of the 'Spice Factory' name used throughout the rezoning fight.
Reported at roughly 39 stories/420-424 feet in reporting close to the original filing, and more loosely as 'over 30 stories' in later retrospectives; unit counts reported inconsistently between 700 affordable units and more than 1,500 total apartments. Continuum's purchase of the site was contingent on the rezoning being approved.
A temporary restraining order was granted over allegations the Department of City Planning failed to publish required documentation before the certification date.
Voted against the towers as 'grossly out of scale'; Continuum's contingent purchase did not close.
Spice importer Abraham Zev Golombeck's team filed plans for a 6-story, 293-unit building requiring no rezoning.
An entity tied to Yitzchok Schwartz reportedly paid around $64 million for 960 Franklin Avenue.
Construction on the current 7-story building progressing.
The Real Deal reported an NY Attorney General offering plan filing projecting a $273 million sellout -- in apparent tension with later rental/lottery reporting.
Reported as a 290-unit rental building, branded Botanic Heights.
91 units at 130% AMI, qualifying incomes $106,766-$238,160; applications due July 2, 2026.
Location
960 Franklin Avenue sits in Crown Heights, a block from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. View on Google Maps.
Sources
Sources: Patch (2020 rezoning TRO); Brownstoner (2022 as-of-right pivot); Brownstoner (962-972 Franklin Avenue); Brownstoner (CB9 vote); New York YIMBY (2025 foundations); New York YIMBY (2026 lottery); The Real Deal (offering plan); Brooklyn Paper (962-972 Franklin Avenue deal); Commercial Observer (962-972 Franklin Avenue sale); Municipal Art Society (2020 opposition case); Lincoln Equities Group; 6sqft.
Hush Street Editorial researches and reports on the projects, permits, and physical changes reshaping Brooklyn — and, more broadly, New York City. Reporting draws on primary-source city records — Department of Buildings filings, land-use and planning applications, agency and community-board documents — verified and cross-checked against independent reporting where it exists. Coverage is continuously updated as new filings and decisions are recorded, and confirmed facts are distinguished from open questions.
