Construction is finished on 1601 DeKalb Avenue, a nine-story, two-building affordable housing complex in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Designed by Aufgang Architects and co-developed by Camber Property Group and RiseBoro Community Partnership, the 89-foot-tall development spans approximately 125,000 square feet and yields 127 rental units in studio to three-bedroom layouts, all reserved for affordable housing. The project also includes 4,000 square feet of communal recreational space, on-site social service offices, bicycle storage, and a shared landscaped courtyard. The property is located between Wyckoff and Irving Avenues with frontage on both DeKalb Avenue and Hart Street.

The opening marks the end of construction roughly two and a half years after groundbreaking, and a little over a year since our last update in September 2025, when the affordable housing lottery launched for 81 of the building’s units. The two nine-story towers display stepped massing mirrored across the pair, with the main entrance set beneath a canopy at the center of the DeKalb Avenue frontage. The fully electric building incorporates high-efficiency heating and cooling systems with passive house principles and complies with Enterprise Green Communities criteria.

Residences are divided among 33 studios, 52 one-bedrooms, 24 two-bedrooms, and 18 three-bedrooms. Amenities include 24-hour security, community and recreation rooms, and common-area Wi-Fi. Forty-five units are reserved as supportive housing for formerly homeless young adult families with children and pregnant women aged 18 to 25, with free on-site services from an eight-person RiseBoro team.

The development replaced a parking lot on land formerly zoned for manufacturing, rezoned for residential use in 2018 under an application by 1601 DeKalb Avenue Owner LLC.

“The work we do is all about the residents,” said Camber principal Rick Gropper in a recent interview with Pix 11’s Monica Morales and NYCHA CEO Lisa Bova-Hiatt. “There are 30,000 people that live in our buildings, so we have to — and it is so important to us — to center the whole experience around the residents. We wouldn’t be here without the people who live in our buildings.”

Tell a random stranger that you write about real estate, and the first question is almost always some version of: “So — how’s the market?”

It’s a question that’s impossible to answer succinctly. Market for what? For multifamily? For office? For industrial? For retail?

This is further complicated by the fact that the asset class is only half the question. Office in San Francisco or in Miami? Multifamily in New York or in Atlanta? Industrial in Northern Virginia or Texas? Retail in Los Angeles or in Denver?

There are different answers to all those questions.

Which is one of the reasons why something like our annual Owners issue is such a valuable tool in the hands of Commercial Observer readers. While the Owners we include are sometimes a little more weighted toward New York City and its office market, it’s not as though we don’t have Access Industries’ Jonah Sonnenborn to give his view on the South Florida hospitality market. Or Oliver Carr to talk about Washington, D.C. Or Charles Cohen to talk about the tenants he’s been wrangling at the Pacific Design Center in Southern California.

These are the players who are seeing the action up close, who are making decisions every day, and who have graciously agreed to explain their thinking.

In addition to exploring the thinking behind business decisions, we also give each of the Owners space to talk a little about who they are as individuals. What do they read? What do they eat? What was their nickname growing up? Who would play them in a movie version of their lives? (Our favorite answer to the last question would be Larry Silverstein’s pick — but Jeff Gural gives him a run for his money.)

And, while plenty of these owners are extremely well trained in keeping themselves from saying the kinds of things that would rattle their investors, terrify their lenders or delight their rivals, we’re always amazed at the insights that come out of each Owners issue. The answers (for the most part) are not canned — they’re real. Every year we learn more and more about who is shaping the real estate scene and why.

Soak it up. – The Editors

Rick Gropper; Camber Property Group

What’s your favorite — and your least favorite — New York affordable housing initiative from the Mamdani administration?

Last year I said the next administration really needed to cut red tape, so my favorite is the SPEED initiatives. I had input into it, and the recommendations are the right ones: faster predevelopment, faster permitting, faster lease-up. The implementation is a work in progress. Good ideas on paper don’t build homes. Implementation does.

The most challenging is the rent freeze. Affordability is critical, and I fully understand why residents need relief. But costs in older rent-stabilized buildings didn’t freeze, and insurance is still the largest line item in any affordable budget. The city’s insurance captive is a good start, but a rent freeze has to come with operating support. Distress isn’t a few years away. It’s here today.

Which type of development does Camber have a greater affinity for: adaptive reuse, preservation or new construction?

All three, and the best projects combine them. Preservation is our roots. Stevenson Commons, a 948-unit Mitchell-Lama in the Bronx, was our first big deal, and it unlocked excess land where we’re now building about 1,000 new homes.

Adaptive reuse is personal. I started my career at a small adaptive reuse firm in New Haven, Conn. Chelsea Beacon, a former YMCA turned prison that we’re converting into 131 affordable homes in Manhattan, is exactly the kind of puzzle we love.

Our pipeline is about 50-50 new construction and preservation, by design.

How does Camber balance its commitment to social responsibility with its responsibility to stakeholders?

Those values do not compete. Our mission is to deliver on the promises we make to all stakeholders, and residents are stakeholders just like our investors, lenders and agency partners. Vertical integration is how we keep those interests aligned. When you control construction and property management, you take out uncertainty, protect returns and do right by residents.

What is the most significant project Camber is currently working on?

Linden Plaza. A year ago, I said it was the most challenging and most rewarding project we’ve ever taken on, and both are still true.

It’s a $1 billion rehab of 1,527 Mitchell-Lama apartments sitting on a platform over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Pitkin Yard in Brooklyn. We’re replacing all of the plumbing, converting from steam to hydronic heat with new boiler “pods,” and upgrading kitchens and baths. In October, residents moved back into the first fully renovated building. This is a day the whole team has been working toward.

What would it surprise people to know about the work Camber does?

That a 1950s public housing campus can be a historic landmark. Edenwald, the largest New York City Housing Authority campus in the Bronx, was deemed eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. That let us bring $264 million of historic tax credits into a $930 million renovation of 2,035 apartments. It’s super nerdy, but this is how you pay for new roofs, windows, kitchens, baths and heating for thousands of families.

People are also surprised by how much work we do in-house. Our team is over 100 people, and more than 300 with building staff. With our own general contractor and property management, the team that underwrites a building is accountable for building it and running it.

Where is Camber doing the most development?

Last year was Brooklyn. This year it’s the Bronx. Stevenson Square in Soundview is our biggest development effort: about 1,000 new affordable homes on a campus where we already preserved 948. We just cut the ribbon on a 117-unit senior building, our affordable co-ops are in sales, and more phases are coming soon. Edenwald is in the Bronx, too. The need is there, the relationships are there, and the land is there.

Outside the city, we’re working toward closing a 500-unit rehab of four distressed assets around Pittsburgh.

If you could change one area of global or local tumult, what would it be?  

The war in the Persian Gulf, because it touches everything, including interest rates. I know, I said I was tired of talking about rates. Oil spikes, inflation follows, and rates stay higher for longer. Much of our construction and predevelopment financing is priced off SOFR, so every quarter-point adds real money to a budget, and, in affordable housing, public subsidy fills that gap. Energy prices also hit our buildings directly through heating and fuel.

Peace would do more for housing affordability (and the world) than any policy I can think of.

Lightning Round

Your AI platform of choice? We’re developing our own thing that sits on top of Claude. I’m sure it will be obsolete next month.

Who would play you in a movie? I’m not really into movies or actors, but a few friends say that I’m Lex Luthor. Not sure if that’s a good thing.

Have you ever eaten pizza with a knife and fork? Do I look like Bill de Blasio?

Bank or non-bank? Bank. Community Reinvestment Act lenders are the backbone of affordable housing.

Last book you read? The Big Short by Michael Lewis. I’ve been into the 2008 Global Financial Crisis drama recently.

Borrowing costs — up or down in 2027? I’ve been saying down for four years now! WTF?

What was your nickname when you grew up/started out? I picked Ricky when I was little. Changed that when I got older and realized it was kind of weird.

How long do we have before AI kills us all? We are going to have some serious disruptions, but then we will work it out and survive.

Where’s your secret escape compound? (Think Peter Thiel’s New Zealand Plan B.) I’m not sure, but all of this reminds me of the movie “Short Circuit” and Johnny 5, the robot who becomes alive. I think he ends up in love with one of his creators.