Developers Envisions 'a Bit of Florida' in South Brooklyn

Stephen Jemal has been buying up small parcels on the South Brooklyn waterfront for the last decade with an eye toward building housing that echoes the beachfront properties of Florida. Now, with a large new loan in hand, he can finally start construction.

Mr. Jemal's company, SSJ Development, which received a $100 million construction loan from Amalgamated Bank earlier this year, will break ground on two projects next month and a third next year in a distant part of Brooklyn dotted with low-rise homes and crumbling docks.

"These are great neighborhoods, but their waterfront is totally abandoned and blighted," said Mr. Jamal, who was the owner of the electronics store Nobody Beats the Wiz before closing the business in 1997. "I want to bring a bit of Florida to New York. … In these developments, you will be able to sit on the dock of the bay, so to speak."

Mr. Jamal will start work in January on 10 single-family homes with price tags of $2 million and up in Mill Basin, as well as 18 apartments starting at $599,000 in a building in Sheepshead Bay.

An avid water sports and boating enthusiast who grew up in Brooklyn, Mr. Jemal said he scopes out potential development sites from his 21-foot speedboat.

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source: nysun.com