Aptsandlofts Says Bedford Stuyvesant Is the New Williamsburg
“I’m seeing in Bed-Stuy what I saw happen in Williamsburg in 2002,” said David Maundrell, founder and president of Aptsandlofts. “We’ve been working out there for a very long time.” The company has just rented its third Brooklyn office, which will be located in Bed Stuy at 308 Malcolm X Boulevard between MacDonough and Decatur streets,…
“I’m seeing in Bed-Stuy what I saw happen in Williamsburg in 2002,” said David Maundrell, founder and president of Aptsandlofts. “We’ve been working out there for a very long time.”
The company has just rented its third Brooklyn office, which will be located in Bed Stuy at 308 Malcolm X Boulevard between MacDonough and Decatur streets, Crain’s reported. Maundrell, who grew up in Williamsburg, opened his first office there in 2002, and last year opened a second office in Cobble Hill. The firm was an early catalyst in Williamsburg’s growth, and often advised developers renovating old tenements about the kind of design its clients favored over the standard Home Depot approach. More recently, it has become known for marketing a high proportion of the neighborhood’s new luxury rentals, such as 53 Broadway and 50 North 5th.
The new office will focus on a “large collection of new condominium units, as well as commercial and retail spaces, that will soon be hitting the market in Bed Stuy and the surrounding neighborhoods of Crown Heights, Clinton Hill and Bushwick,” said Crain’s. Aptsandlofts plans to hire 45 more agents (bringing the total head count at the firm to 150) and open its doors in January.
The new offices are located in the same building as real estate developer Brookland Capital, which recently bought the building and opened its own offices there. Aptsandlofts joins many other medium-sized and neighborhood based real estate firms, including Evans & Nye, Flateau Realty Corp., and Stuyvesant Heights Brokerage.
“As low inventory and high costs push more prospective buyers and renters into Bed Stuy, sales transactions have been heating up,” said the story. Maundrell “has seen families move into the neighborhood and plunk down $1 million to convert a three-family home into one just for themselves, something that would have been unheard of just a few years ago.” The neighborhood’s blocks of brownstones “are more reminiscent of Cobble Hill” than Williamsburg, said Maundrell.
Do you agree Bed Stuy is the new Williamsburg? How do you think the area is changing?
Bed Stuy Eyed as Next Williamsburg [Crain’s]
North Crown heights is more like the early days of willamsburg than bed sty. Franklin ave is like Bedford back in the day when verb coffee was the only spot on the avenue and members of grizzly bears served you coffee. Crown heights also has the industrial and residential mix that bed sty lacks. Both neighborhoods are huge so it’s hard to label them. But as an old school wburg kid living in north crown heights it feels like south Wburg circa 2004 when Diner, Marlow and Pies and Thighs were making things happen. Things that can never happen in Brooklyn heights, ft Greene, Clinton hill and even prospect heights because the rents are too high.
If David Maundrell thinks that Bed Stuy is the next Williamsburg and not the ‘next Park Slope’, then this guy is not very intuitive. Doesn’t take a moron to see the housing similarities between Bed Stuy and Park Slope and that families (not young fresh out of college artists) are buying the townhouses.
I think your right havewit when it comes to Bedford Stuyvesant, the south the neighborhood and Park Slope looking very much the same. North of Willoughby with the exception of a few blocks the neighborhood gets somewhat Williamsburg-ish.
aptsandlofts, you have not been in Williamsburg for a long, long time. You have existed for a little more than a decade. It’s not that long.
Bed Stuy is the new Park Slope.
Sadly, this is probably true.
NO NO NO NO ! We do not want WIlliamsburg part 2 here… We like a sense of community where people say hello, the parade of people going to Church on Sundays. kids playing on the streets, non crowed sidewalks etc. Bedford Stuyvesant has always and still dose have its own identity which is not Williamsburg.
And so the juggernaut continues. As more buyers “plunk down” 1 million, what happens to the long term residents, or anyone with a limited amount of money who seeks to live in Bed-Stuy? And what happens to storefronts that are probably hungry for upscale businesses? This is one of DeBlasiio’s problems—how can he unite the “two New Yorks” , if gentrification keeps pushing hard in places like Bed-Stuy, Bushwick and Crown Heights.? It looks like he has his work cut out for him, if he truly believes in solving the problem.
when someone says something is “the new williamsburg” it has nothing to do with architecture