1510 Broadway

Project Overview

Affordable housing delivered ground-up in Brooklyn

1510 Broadway is a 108-unit, 140,000-square-foot mixed-use affordable housing development in Brooklyn, financed through the NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD). rcRussell was engaged by a Westchester-based affordable housing developer, with GLUCK+ as design architect, to deliver the project ground-up — from site remediation through structural frame, building envelope, residential units, and ground-floor retail.

The site arrived encumbered. Like The St. Clair, 1510 Broadway entered construction through the NYSDEC Brownfield Cleanup Program: a regulatory pathway that turns contaminated parcels into buildable land at the cost of a long, documented remediation sequence that has to close out before vertical work can begin.

What rcRussell delivered was a full-cycle program: regulatory closure, foundation, frame, envelope, fit-out, HPD compliance throughout, and a completed asset that contributes 108 units of permanent affordable housing to a neighborhood that needs them.

HPD-financed affordable housing demands cost discipline at every line item. Adding a NYSDEC brownfield to the same delivery program means the project has to be regulatory-clean before it can even start framing — and still hit the budget the financing was modeled against.

rcRussell Management Approach

The Challenge

Brownfield rules, HPD economics

1510 Broadway sat on a NYSDEC Brownfield Cleanup Program parcel — a designation that turns a buildable lot into a regulated environmental project before any foundation work begins. Soil management, vapor barriers, and engineering controls had to be designed, installed, and signed off under DEC oversight, with documentation kept tight enough to clear program closure on schedule.

Layered onto that was the cost framework of NYC HPD affordable housing financing. HPD-funded developments operate on tight budget envelopes that don't have line items for surprise remediation costs. Every brownfield decision had to be made with one eye on the regulatory standard and the other on the financing model, and the schedule had to accommodate both without slipping the in-service date the affordability pro forma was built around.

Our Approach

From brownfield closure to 108 keys turned

NYSDEC Brownfield Program

Full coordination with the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation Brownfield Cleanup Program. Engineering controls and soil-management documentation packaged for regulatory closure so the schedule could move into vertical construction without lingering remediation exposure.

HPD Cost & Compliance Discipline

Affordable housing financed through NYC HPD requires line-item discipline and ongoing compliance reporting. rcRussell ran the project against the HPD budget framework from preconstruction through closeout, with the documentation rigor HPD-funded work demands.

Ground-Up Frame & Envelope

Foundation, superstructure, building envelope, and weather-tight close-in delivered through Brooklyn's full seasonal cycle. Trade stacking and procurement sequenced to keep the critical path moving and the HPD in-service date intact.

Mixed-Use Residential Delivery

108 affordable housing units plus ground-floor mixed-use program, delivered to a finish standard that reads like quality market-rate while staying inside the HPD cost framework. Punch list, certificate of occupancy, and HPD turnover handled in-house.