Lidl grocery store, apartments rise in Crown Heights

An attractive mixed-use complex with commercial space, a Lidl discount grocery store, and apartments is rising at the corner of Bedford Avenue and Empire Boulevard in Crown Heights.

A recent visit showed a simple and modern-looking four-story white-brick veneer building at 1750 Bedford Ave. that will house the grocery store looking nearly complete on the outside. Behind it, a similarly clad but less symmetrical seven-story apartment building with balconies is still partly shrouded in scaffolding.

The complex may be a rare case of a build looking better than its renderings. The structure’s massing has been updated and plans no longer call for two more stories with a setback at the corner.

The new building has taken the place of a 1936 Art Deco Streamline Moderne Firestone Auto Supply and Service Store. The service station’s streamlined curves and prominent signage dominated the corner for decades, despite it being only one story.

The new development will bring an affordable grocery store to an area currently lacking in options, along with 57 new apartments, 18 of which will be considered affordable, developers said, though it is not yet clear what rents will be. Notably, it will do this without climbing to controversial heights, like some have pitched for the area, by using the city’s Quality Housing Program, which allows for bulkier-density buildings in exchange for keeping heights lower.

In May 2022, the Department of Buildings issued a full demolition permit to owner Jack Gold of Seventh Street Development Group, city records show. In January 2023, a new-building permit was issued for a new six-story building with 57 apartments, parking for 169 vehicles, a loading berth, and 55,998 square feet of commercial space. The permit says the commercial area, which fronts Empire Boulevard, was reduced from seven to four stories.

In 2023, it was announced that a 33,000-square-foot Lidl discount supermarket would take part of the commercial space, bringing an affordable grocery option to an area that has been labeled a food desert by local residents. At the time, Seventh Street Development Group, said the complex would have 12,000 square feet of retail space, 12,000 square feet of office space, and a 9,000 square-foot community facility. Permits show 13,501 square feet have been set aside for a community facility, and a Chipotle restaurant has also signed a lease on the ground floor.

Jeff Akerman of Rise Architecture is the architect of record. Other projects for the Brooklyn-based firm include an eight-story affordable housing development at 605 Hart Street in Bushwick and a mixed-use tower at 15 Ocean Avenue in Prospect Lefferts Gardens.

The property was purchased in 1989 by the Empire Bedford Development Company, which leased it to Firestone for years. Even after the demolition of Ebbets Field in 1960, the service station continued to be operated under the Firestone brand through at least 2019. Empire Bedford Development transferred the property to a related LLC in 2021, and it has been transferred to other related companies since. Currently city records show it is owned by 1730 Bedford Owner LLC. Gold appears to be behind the LLCs.

Empire Boulevard was once dominated by single-story service stations and garages meant to accommodate the traffic at the bustling ballpark, but in recent years, as businesses have closed down or relocated and buildings left vacant, there have been conversations about whether on not to introduce housing along the stretch.

Just up the block at 73-99 Empire Boulevard, locals recently pushed back on a developer’s plan to rezone and build a 13-story mixed-use development on the corner of Empire Boulevard and McKeever Place, saying the new building would cast shade on nearby children’s play areas, be out of context, and wouldn’t be affordable to local residents. The site currently holds a Gothic-style 1920s single-story garage.

The local community board and residents who spoke at the borough president’s hearing said they support a low-rise commercial building taking the place of the garage, and said they fear any precedent a rezoning like the one proposed would set for Empire Boulevard.

A version of this story first appeared on Brooklyn Paper’s sister site Brownstoner.