The Founder and President of NSA (National Standard Abstract), Osei Rubie, used his extensive experience in title-insurance to launch a full-service firm that could handle important legalities of real estate development, for property owners, developers and brokers.
NSA is one of the very few certified minority-owned enterprises in the state of New York that handles title insurance, on a large scale. The company is comprised of a powerful team of experts who thrive to provide real estate developers and property owners with the necessary tools to work through multifaceted transactions, such as the expansion of affordable housing, hospitals, amusement parks, office spaces, and mixed-use properties. NSA’s good works quickly earned the firm accolades for their efforts towards affordable housing developments. In 2018, NSA has closed half-a-billion dollars of deals with $389 million more in the transaction pipeline.
In one of Rubie’s most recent projects, and perhaps the biggest real estate development game-changer the Brownsville community has experienced in recent years, NSA worked with The Church of God in navigating the development process that is typically daunting for churches and non profits.
The Church of God located on East 95th Street in East Flatbush has been known as the crowded little church the community adores, is soon to be large enough to accommodate all its worshippers, which consists of over 1,600 members. That’s nearly triple the size of an average Sunday service at nearby houses of worship. According to Bishop RC Hugh Nelson, the congregation has increased drastically over time due to the church’s influence on the community and the uplifting spirituality it offers its members.
“The space is surely an issue,” said the pastor of Church of God of East Flatbush R.C. Hugh Nelson.
With the new expansion, The Church of God’s growth will also contain an addition of 531 affordable housing units. The people of Brownsville will have Osei Rubie to thank for his works at the National Standard Abstract for assisting with this faith-based development. Rubie predicts that more religious establishments will begin to partake in the real estate game.
“This trend is growing in such abundance because of the fact that churches like the Church of God in East Flatbush have these properties and parcels and are able to capitalize on it by monetizing it and providing affordable housing,” Rubie said.
Church-owned developments are considered public property so the entire plan needed approval by the attorney general, and the endorsement mandated that 25,000 sq. ft. of space of the expansion be dedicated to retail space.
The Church of God project which is due to be completed by 2020, has surely proven to be an advanced mission that will not only change the real estate game in terms of being one of the first expansions of this magnitude, but a venture that encompassed the needs of the community by adding an affordable housing component, along with a dedicated percentage of space for business owners.
“I think this is a tremendous project,” said Ericka Keller, CEO of Brisa Builders, the development firm for multiple upcoming projects in Brownville. “The fact that a church had two city blocks and they were willing to not only advance their own mission of a larger community facility where they could provide services but include affordable housing under the Mayor’s housing initiative, I think is phenomenal.”
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