Condos
February 1, 2008
Update on the 166 Montague Street Conversion
The conversion of the Franklin Trust building at 166 Montague in Brooklyn Heights is well underway but is not close enough to completion for the project's website to have any information. All we know at this point is that the 10-story landmarked building will ultimately contain 24 residential units along with a health spa and a part-time doorman; Elliman will have the exclusive. The Real Deal reported last summer that one-bedrooms will be about 800 square feet, the two-bedrooms 1,250 square feet and the three-bedrooms 1,600 square feet. Sales are expected to start in the late spring or early summer. You gotta think they're going to at least try for $1,100 or $1,200 a foot for some of the nicest units.
166 Montague: The Height of Change in Brooklyn Heights [The Real Deal] GMAP<-->
January 31, 2008
Condos of the Day: 134 St. Marks Place
It’s tough to beat this new Scarano-designed condo in the North Slope for proximity to Fifth Avenue retail and all the subway lines at Atlantic (not to mention that as new construction, it’s something of a rare bird in this neck of the woods). That said, buyers don’t seem to be falling all over themselves to ink deals here: The development’s been listed for a few months now and Corcoran's website isn’t showing any units in contract. The seven listings are running between $535,000 and $565,000 for the one-bedroom, one-baths; around $740,000 for the two units that top 1,000 square feet; and $995,000 for the biggest unit, a 1,352-sf two-bedroom, two-bath. 134 St. Marks’ pricing is similar to what units at the Crest and Novo were asking, and (for our money, anyway), 134’s location is a lot better—so we wonder why more of these aren’t in contract. (Market jitters? Uninspired interiors?) Anyone checked them out?
134 Saint Marks Place [Corcoran]
134 Saint Marks Place [Brownstoner] GMAP
Williamsburg’s Goody-Goody Greenbelt
The marketers behind a new Williamsburg condo called Greenbelt are really pushing the condo’s eco- and artist-friendly features. The Greenbelt team says the eight-unit building 361 Manhattan Avenue is expected to receive an LEED Gold rating and save around 46 percent of a standard building’s energy costs (its many green bells and whistles include a solar energy collector on the roof and a passive heat recovery system). The building is also going to have a 4,000-square-foot, nonprofit performing arts center on the ground floor. So it’s definitely got great credentials—but will it sell? The units are mostly two-bedrooms; the single, 710-square-foot top-floor one-bedroom is going for $599,000, while the two-bedrooms topping 1,000 square feet are going for between $759,000 and $815,000. The healthy sales at the green condo in the South Slope, 515 Fifth Avenue, certainly indicate that the market is receptive to eco-friendly builds—we’ll find out if that’s true in the Burg, too.
Greenbelt [Homepage] GMAP
Greenbelt Listings [Apts and Lofts]
Williamsburg's Greenbelt Getting Green [Curbed]
January 30, 2008
Condo Conversion for 283 Washington Avenue
The five-story brownstone at 283 Washington Avenue in Clinton Hill, which last changed hands for $1,670,000 in 2005, will soon be reborn as the Cherry Tree Condos, according to a sign in the house's front yard. A peek at DOB filings suggests it will consist of five units. Brooklyn Properties will have the listing, but there's nothing on its website yet. Anyone know anything else? GMAP<--> P*Shark DOB
January 29, 2008
Condos of the Day: Price Pressure at The Beacon
Most of the units at The Beacon in Dumbo appear to have been sold by now. The last seven apartments, however, are presenting a challenge to marketers. (Corcoran has six of the units, Elliman one.) Five of the seven have already had price reductions, including, most recently, Apartment 20B, a 947-square-foot space that was just cut from $890,000 to $825,000. Given the high floor and the relatively low price per square foot for the area, we could see this moving at the new price. On a side note, we noticed when perusing the past sales that one investor (a Boerum Hill liquor store owner, as far as we can tell) was responsible for buying eight of the units. Interesting.
85 Adams Street Listings [Street Easy] GMAP<--> P*Shark
Photo by Atomic LLC
January 28, 2008
Condos of the Day: Price Cuts at Forte
The same forces that have led to recent price cuts and rental reversions in the Downtown area are also bleeding over into the BAM Cultural District, where the Clarett Group (a long-time advertiser on Brownstoner) just started cutting prices on some of the Forte's 110 units. Two bedrooms that used to be in the $750,000 range just got about $100,000 cheaper. The 1,059-square-foot Apartment 8D, for example, is now $650,000. Think that'll be enough to get fence-sitters to pull out their checkbooks?
Forte Studios on the Market [Brownstoner] GMAP<-->
Forte's Law: Doubling Height Every Month [Brownstoner]
From Cheesecake to Condos on Fulton [Brownstoner]
January 25, 2008
Verdi's Sales Like Its Architecture: Ugly
The Verdi, a 14-unit development at 80 Adelphi Street in Fort Greene, definitely falls into the "What Were They Thinking?" category. When we scratched our head over this place back in September, two units were allegedly in contract. Now, four months later, there are just three. Is this over-the-top eyesore bound for the rental pool?
The Verdi [Corcoran] GMAP P*Shark DOB
At Verdi, All That Glitters Ain't Gold [Brownstoner]
New Development: Verdi on Adelphi [Brownstoner]
January 24, 2008
Condo of the Day: 661 Carroll Street
Maybe the difference was timing, but the developer of both 659 and 661 Carroll Street had an easy time selling out the former while the latter has been more of a struggle, culminating in a price cut for the last available unit (#3) from $949,000 to $875,000 two weeks ago. As we said last spring, we really like the way the owner cleaned this place up with some modern flashes while maintaining the inherent charm. While the comments were generally positive about the listing last spring, evidently $1,000 a foot was too tough for the market to swallow. Think $875,000 for the 923-square-foot pad will get the deal done?
661 Carroll Street [Warren Lewis] GMAP<--> P*Shark
661 Carroll Street, #3 [Corcoran]
Condos of the Day: 659/661 Carroll [Brownstoner]
January 23, 2008
Condos of the Day: 100 North 3rd Street
Just down the block from the Mill Building, the new development at 100 North 3rd Street is now on the market, having attracted five buyers to date. Which leaves thirteen units unsold, according to the Corcoran website or, if DOB filings are to be believed, another 19 units. Most of the apartments have very high ceilings, sleeping mezzanines and super-modern stylings. Do you think that the $700 to $800 per square foot price range will be compelling enough to move the rest of the units?
100 North 3rd Listings [Corcoran] GMAP<--> P*Shark
January 22, 2008
Condo of the Day: 409 3rd Street
Third Street in Park Slope, with its width and grand houses, is certainly an impressive stretch. That doesn't mean, however, that an attractive, but far from spectacular, floor-through apartment will be able to fetch $1,000 a foot. The second-floor apartment at 409 3rd Street, which is asking $1,199,000, has some nice prewar charm, to be sure, but the bathroom and kitchen are definitely a little tired and the layout feels like a cluttered maze of little rooms to us. The broker's use of gross square footage to hype the place rubs us the wrong way as well. (He states a gross square footage of 1,337; PropertyShark uses the figure of 1,098. After all, you can't sleep in the common hallway!) We think they'll be lucky to get $1,050,000.
409 3rd Street [Corcoran] GMAP<--> P*Shark