Partners in the News: PRC and Hudson Companies spearhead largest NY PACT project to date
This installment: the Boulevard Together PACT transaction that is transforming 1,673 units of aging NYCHA housing across three properties in East New York, Brooklyn. Doyle Advisors supported PRC with market analysis during the active renovation phase in early 2024.
Three Generations, One Mission
There is a story the Linde family tells about how their grandfather, the founder of Property Resources Corporation, once outlined the economics of a high-rise condominium joint venture on a paper tablecloth at Patsy's in Manhattan. A handshake sealed it.
That was 1971, and the beginning of what would become five decades of building, preserving, and repositioning more than 20,000 apartments in New York and beyond. In 2026, brothers Matthew and Benjamin Linde took full ownership and rebranded the company as People Restoring Communities.
The initials stayed and the focus narrowed. The new motto: "Everyone deserves a home."
If we can keep that humanity at the center of what we do, I will consider everything else a success."
— Matthew Linde, Principal & CEO, PRC
Boulevard Together: A $600 Million Bet on Preservation
Four years before the rebrand, PRC entered into what would become one of the most ambitious preservation transactions to date under NYCHA's Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) initiative. In January of 2022, PRC, The Hudson Companies and Duvernay + Brooks closed on a $600 million package in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, under the name Boulevard PACT.
This project was intended to preserve three separate NYCHA developments: Boulevard Houses, Fiorentino Plaza, and Belmont-Sutter Area Houses. In total, the joint partnership encompassed 1,673 apartments across twenty-nine buildings. One hundred percent of units preserved as permanently affordable.
The transaction stacked New York City HDC and JP Morgan Chase construction financing, as well as $140 million in historic tax credits from Chase Community Development Banking thanks to Boulevard Houses’ and Fiorentino Plaza’s listings on the National Register of Historic Places.
Other partners on this project included Nixon Peabody as legal counsel, Forsyth Street Advisors as financial advisor, Higgins Quasebarth & Partners on historic preservation, and CohnReznick as accountants. CAMBA was tapped as the on-the-ground social services partner delivering adult literacy, GED and workforce training, and family services programming.
The scope of the physical work is comprehensive:
New kitchens and bathrooms in every unit, Energy Star appliances, LED lighting, electric water heaters, full replacement of windows, roofs, and building envelopes, asbestos and lead-based paint abatement.
Rehabs went beyond just units; the project included modernized elevators, new security including cell-phone-controlled intercoms at building entrances, and expansive site improvements — landscaping, playgrounds, chess and tennis tables, community gardens, basketball court resurfacing, outdoor fitness equipment, splash pads, and solar panels.
Two low-rise buildings at Boulevard Houses received state-of-the-art laundry rooms with large-capacity equipment serving the entire complex.
Listening First
What distinguishes the Boulevard Together approach is not just the capital stack, but also the explicit posture toward residents:
In an interview earlier this year, Matthew Linde described standing in front of a room of future Boulevard Houses tenants with renderings PRC and Hudson were proud of, only to have residents push back immediately. They did not like the cabinet colors or flooring choice. A window was missing from the rendering, which tenants took to mean the window was being removed from the actual unit.
It was not, but the misunderstanding revealed something important: the residents were paying close attention, and they had strong preferences about the homes they were being asked to accept. The team listened and adjusted, and ultimately gave residents multiple design options and let them vote.
"By including the community in the design process and repeatedly showing up to meetings and listening to tenants' concerns, we set the tone for what we would be like to work with.”
— Matthew Linde
For a firm that has spent five decades in New York affordable housing, this is not a marketing posture. It is how the business gets done. Aaron Koffman at Hudson Companies made the same point when the Boulevard Together financing first closed in 2022: "This is about the residents first and foremost."
Our Role at Doyle Advisors
By late 2023, the physical rehab at Boulevard Houses was well underway.
Twelve of the eighteen buildings were complete or nearing completion, with the remaining six anticipated for Q1 or Q2 2024. PRC and Hudson were preparing to submit a rent increase request to NYCHA, and engaged Doyle Real Estate Advisors in December 2023 to support the analysis.
The assignment was unusually layered.
Boulevard Houses operates under a Project-Based Voucher (PBV) contract rather than a Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA) contract, which meant NYCHA, not HUD, served as administrator with its own distinct submission requirements. The property's 1,446 units, spread across low-rise and high-rise building typologies with six different unit configurations, called for careful segmentation.
The historic tax credit dimension added another layer. The tight submarket itself presented complications that required care in the identification and treatment of comparable properties, which was the team’s responsibility to demonstrate with utmost detail to NYCHA and the client.
Our report, delivered to PRC in February of 2024, structured to serve both as internal market documentation for PRC and Hudson and as a comparable-property submission package meeting NYCHA's own database requirements.
The Next Chapter
PRC's pipeline calls for three to five construction loan closings in 2026 and another three to five in 2027, with the firm expanding geographically while retaining its vertically integrated model. The first out-of-New York acquisition, Paulsboro Gardens Apartments, a 150-unit Section 8 property in New Jersey, closed earlier this year.
The Hudson Companies continues to be one of the most active affordable and mixed-income developers in New York City, with an active portfolio spanning East New York, Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, Clinton Hill, Roosevelt Island, and other neighborhoods.
Boulevard Together represents both the scale of what preservation partnerships can accomplish and the patience they require. Twenty-nine buildings do not renovate themselves. Communities do not restore themselves. It takes financing partners, general contractors, architects, engineers, attorneys, historic preservation consultants, social service organizations, on-site management teams, and — most of all — the residents themselves.
We congratulate the Boulevard Together partnership on the substantial completion of one of the largest and most complex PACT preservation transactions to date, and we appreciate the opportunity to have supported PRC during a critical phase of the work.
Doyle Real Estate Advisors provides Rent Comparability Studies, LIHTC valuation, market demand studies, and transaction advisory services to owners, developers, lenders, and housing finance agencies working in project-based Section 8 and LIHTC affordable housing.
Learn more at www.doyleadvisors.com.