Today we launch an experimental new feature on the site, a development blog written by a developer. Despite having taken a few lumps from us in the past over the J Condo, The Hudson Companies is going to blog its next Brooklyn project, the townhouse condos at 111 Third Street in Gowanus, on Brownstoner.com. Frankly, we’ve got no idea what to expect, but suspect that on balance it’ll be a pretty interesting exercise. Every Thursday, David Kramer, one of the firm’s principals, and his associate Alison Novak, will pen a new post. There are only two things we’ve suggested they bring to the table: total transparency and a thick skin.

After reading the first posting about our latest development at 111 Third Street (GMAP) on Brownstoner two weeks ago, we pitched Mr. B on the idea of an ongoing weekly blog, reporting the process (warts and all) as we design, develop, finance, construct and market our new housing project. For the Brownstoner community, this will be a chance to peer inside the real estate development world to see how we make the sausage. For us at Hudson, a chance to take advantage of a built-in focus group of informed Brooklynites while getting some free publicity.

It all started last summer when the Vitanza brothers, plumbing contractors who had been at the site for 10 years, decided to relocate to Red Hook and take advantage of the skyrocketing land prices in brownstone Brooklyn. Like many of the listings that cross our desk, this one, for a site with 180 feet of frontage on Third Street and potential for almost 50,000 square feet of development, came from Massey Knakal. Four out of five listings that we get we immediately discard….too expensive, lousy location, too small, too big. If we had a dollar for every flier advertising a site in Downtown Brooklyn (i.e., Flatbush/Willoughby) to build a 30 story building and pay $200/sf for the land. What are they smoking? But we focused on this listing.

For starters, it was down the street from our then office location…

…We had noticed the increasing desirability of this area—Park Slope moving west, Carroll Gardens moving east, Gowanus becoming a hipster name, the F train 2 blocks away, and coming slowly into focus, a distant image in the future, the first Whole Foods of Brooklyn coming to Third & Third.

We also liked the price, $160/sf. We thought you could sell finished condos in a quality product for at least $700/sf, so there could be a profit if you didn’t screw up. Finally, we had a concept for the housing that fit well with the R6 zoning…a row of townhouses, 4 stories high, each one consisting of multiple condos so that the price could be affordable for each unit, and we wouldn’t have to worry about selling each house for $2-3 million. These condos would have a range of sizes and prices, from $400K to $1.4 million. We could build 20-foot wide townhouses, 9 of them in a row, that was our plan.

We placed our bid, got encouraging feedback from Ken Freeman of Massey Knakal that our bid was competitive…..and we didn’t get the deal. The Vitanzas signed a contract with Developer #1. Oh well, more frogs to kiss, more development sites to explore. Or so we thought…

See you next week,

David & Alison