Developer Andrew Kohen’s mixed-use project that would have yielded a Home Depot, and roughly 200 units of additional housing on 8th avenue between 65th and 64th streets, is apparently in limbo – a casualty of the nationwide housing and credit crisis.
Kohen’s project, approved last year by Community Board 10, came under heavy fire from local activists, calling it irresponsible; and who in language all too familiar to present day developer woes, at times, shouted down the developer as a liar and profiteer.

MSK Properties tells the Brooklyn Eagle, the project is on indefinite hold until an upswing in housing, as Kohen maintains an optimistic wait-and-see, what goes down ‘must eventually come back up,’ attiude.

The site itself has been orphaned by several other long-since forgotten projects that have included at least one supermarket proposal – Kohen’s project has gone the farthest however.

The Home Depot project has long been considered a direct assault to many of the independently owned and operated building supply companies that line 8th avenue all the way down to sunset park throughout the 50′s and 60′s who traditionally supply local builders and contractors in the Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst area.

Conversely, with KeyFood’s closure all but a forgone conclusion — at least according to State Senator Marty Golden who said that commercial property’s sale and transfer to ownership of a developer for the purposes of another commercial property is legal no matter how many signatures on a petition — many are left to wonder why acquiring a supermarket for the greater Bay Ridge area with parking is such a chore, especially when demand for a food supplier is so abundant. Whereas Bay Ridge/Sunset Park are saturated with supply houses?

Whether or not Kohens option on the land results in the mega building supply store remains to be seen; Bloomberg media cites a bleak forecast for the nationwide chain, with plans to close 15 stores nationwide in the coming year.