Ingersoll Senior Residences with SAGE Center

Organization Name: BFC Partners

Project Title: Ingersoll Senior Residences with SAGE Center

Project Location: Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY

Project Goals:
BFC Partners, along with SAGE, is developing Ingersoll Senior Residences which will be NYC's first senior living environment that promotes diversity and safety for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) elders, their friends and allies (and the nation's largest). Conservative estimates project that a minimum of 100,000 LGBT elders currently live in New York City, with that number expected to double over the next 15 years; fear of discrimination inhibits a majority of these residents from accessing essential supportive services. Complicating matters even further, many LGBT elders find themselves priced out of the communities in which they have lived for years due to higher levels of financial insecurity and a general lack of affordable housing.

The senior center will provide all residents with a comprehensive range of supportive services designed to help tenants achieve the highest possible level of health and well-being while aging in place in the community.

Project Description:
Ingersoll Senior Residences will be a 17-story building with 145 units and a 6,500 square foot senior center. The project is the result of a NYCHA Next Gen RFP. The residential entrance will be located on St. Edwards Street and the entry for the senior center will be located off Myrtle Avenue. Building amenities located on the cellar floor include tenant storage and bike storage. Second floor amenities include a lounge, reading/card room, and laundry facility that have access to a common outdoor roof deck. A seventh floor viewing roof deck is also envisioned to contain shrubbery and vegetated planters or a planted sedum roof. A common roof deck at the 14th floor will be an outdoor amenity accessible to tenants. The senior center will provide a continuum of support services operated by Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE), including a full range of social, health and wellness, and culture and arts activities, including technology access and training.

Community Impact:
The project was awarded a Section 8 Project Based Voucher ensuring that apartments are affordable to anyone earning below 60% of AMI. Additionally, 30% of the units will be reserved for formerly homeless older adults who have come directly from the street or from emergency or transitional shelter. All social services will be located on-site for easy accessibility to all residents. There will be a large flexible congregate dining space with partition systems to enable use for programming when not being used a as a dining room. The Center will have a large kitchen equipped to heat catered meals and offer a wide range of cooking and nutrition classes. The SAGE Center will also have a computer center and a library available to all residents and community center constituents. Room for fitness classes are also included in the design, which will enable residents to maximize their physical health, as well as participate in outdoor programming like urban gardening and walks through the park

Organization Description:
BFC Partners is owned and operated by three principals: Donald Capoccia, Joseph Ferrara, and Brandon Baron. The core of BFC’s activities over the past 30 years has been the acquisition, development, financing, construction, marketing and management of affordable and market-rate housing, including government-subsidized low, middle and moderate rentals and home ownership. BFC and its principals have concluded over $3.5 Billion in acquisition and development projects since the firm’s inception and have over $2.5 Billion of projects currently in development. BFC’s team provides project management services, equity capital, project guarantees, general contracting, marketing and overseeing of project lease-up, and is generally responsible for the overall development process. BFC has extensive experience working with a variety of City agencies and has successfully completed numerous ULURP applications.