NEWS: Spanish Camp Redux
Five years ago, this was the biggest preservation controversy in the city. Check out http://www.preserve.org/plsi/dday.htm for some history.
$40M pricetag for historic S. Shore site
Former Spanish Camp, the focus of controversy, being marketed as ‘rare’ development opportunity
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
By KAREN O’SHEA
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE
The former Spanish Camp, a serene slice of waterfront real estate in Annadale where battles over religion, preservation and development have played out for years, is up for sale again, this time for $40 million.
The Manhattan-based brokerage firm Massey Knakal is marketing the 18-acre property on its Web site and through direct mailings as a “unique and rare development opportunity.”
Dorothy Day, a co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement who is being considered now for sainthood, used to spend her summers retreating to a bungalow on a bluff overlooking Raritan Bay when the place was a camp founded by expatriates from Spain.
Nearby, Muss Development Co. is in contract to sell 23 waterfront acres at the foot of Seguine Avenue in Prince’s Bay for $38 million — the only figure that comes close to the current price tag for Spanish Camp, sources said yesterday. An executive for the Brooklyn-based company, which cleaned the site of toxins left behind by a former factory, said the property and approved plans for 133 homes are under contract, but he would not reveal the price.
Joseph Sitt is the broker marketing the former camp, mostly wooded land tucked off Poillon Avenue and bordered by the ocean and picturesque Seguine Pond.
He acknowledged the $40 million price was “aggressive” in a softening market, but said he believed water rights gave it that value. The zoning allows for attached homes to be built and Sitt said he had interest from multiple developers, including two builders of active adult communities, but no deal had been reached.
Six years after the Spanish Naturopath Society sold Spanish Camp to controversial broker and builder John DiScala for $7.1 million, a variety of developers and individuals hoping to put up homes there have bought lots from two of DiScala’s now bankrupt companies.
STALLED DEVELOPMENT
DiScala, meanwhile, has been unable to significantly advance a plan to build 25 mini-mansions on the site since demolishing Miss Day’s bungalow in 2001. The tiny house was being considered for landmark status at the time.
“I know it’s a sensitive piece and it does have history,” Sitt said yesterday. “But I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of a smart developer being able to see a significant upside in the property. … Where else do you have the opportunity to have a beachfront private residence along the waterfront, and to have a slip and boat and be in New York?”
Sitt said DiScala was acting on behalf of all the interested owners when he hired the company to market the site.
Otto Savo, a well-established South Shore builder who bought several lots from DiScala the same day DiScala closed the deal with the Spanish Naturopath Society in 2000, said the project seemed to sink in a quicksand of bureaucratic red tape after DiScala demolished Miss Day’s camp cottage along with two others in 2001. He said the plan to build “big beautiful homes” never got off the ground.
“It’s the best place on Staten Island but it’s a mess,” Savo said of the state of affairs at Spanish Camp. “It hurts me to talk about it.”
The only permit DiScala was able to secure over the years for Spanish Camp was state approval to build next to wetlands. He was not able to get the go-ahead from City Planning to build 25 mini-mansions, and new developers will have to seek their own approvals.
HOUSING IDEAS
A lack of sewers in the area could also make it difficult for a developer to build dense, attached housing there, but Sitt insisted yesterday that there is a lot of flexibility to do a variety of housing there.
DiScala did not return phone calls yesterday seeking comment, but Sitt said it may have become a personal issue between the developer and the city. He said a new buyer would be starting fresh.
“Not everybody has the same approach to a situation,” Sitt said.
DiScala’s approach raised eyebrows on more than one occasion.
In 2001, he got into a shouting match at the site with then-mayoral hopeful Mark Green over the demolition of Miss Day’s cottage. And an expediter who pulled the demolition permit for DiScala was later indicted for forgery before those charges were dropped when her company agreed to pay a $2,500 fine.
Despite a personal bankruptcy in 1992, DiScala emerged as the dealmaker who stuck with the difficult sale of the camp and the eviction of the former residents, who owned bungalows there but not the land underneath. At the closing, DiScala, acting as the main buyer, assigned new contracts to builders Savo and Ely Reiss. DiScala and Reiss also later sold some of their lots to individual buyers who hoped to build homes there.
But DiScala has blamed city agencies for delays and forcing him to downsize his plan from 37 to 25 homes.
A spokeswoman for the Landmarks Preservation Commission also said yesterday that the commission remains “interested” in the land where Miss Day’s cottage and two others once stood.
“I don’t know if it’s a personal vendetta or what, they don’t want this project to move on,” DiScala said of city agencies during an interview in 2001.
A spokeswoman for City Planning said yesterday that the agency had been working closely with DiScala over the years, even as it negotiated a site plan that adhered to open-space requirements.
She said the agency had been waiting for DiScala to file a formal revised application to build 27 homes.
Karen O’Shea covers real estate news for the Advance. She may be reached at [email protected] .
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