It’s a Slurpee World…
Guess which Queens neighborhood just got its first 7-Eleven? This one.
What’s Cooking in Queens?
Here’s a taste of some of the posts on Brownstoner Queens today…
New Parents Discover Long Island City’s “Strip-Club-to-Supermarket Ratio”
The State of Queens Housing: 1Q 2013
New Public School Rising on 46th Street in Sunnyside
Public Hearing About Future of Graffiti Building On Wednesday
Condo of the Day: 71 Pierrepont Street, #2

Strangely enough, our Condo of the Day and Rental of the Day both have a double-height living room with a mezzanine level one would not expect to find on the interior of a brownstone. But the condo at 71 Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights is more lavish, with four bedrooms, a wood burning fireplace, an elevator in the five-story building, central air, and a private terrace. The finishes and conveniences are modern, as is the price of $2,575,000.
71 Pierrepont Street, #2 [Brown Harris Stevens] GMAP P*Shark
Brownstoner Queens Is Open for Business!
Brownstoner Queens is live as of this morning. Come take a look, browse through our archives or check out our real estate listings. And stop back in whenever you like. Even if you have no imminent plans to move away from Brooklyn, there’s going to be lots of content for architecture and history buffs as well as those who care about food, bike lanes and even the environment. We’ve even put a permanent link in the navigation bar to make it extra easy to pop back and forth. And, please, tell your friends!
Open House Picks
Prospect Heights
204 Park Place
Donawald Realty, Inc
Sunday, 12:00-2:00
$3,900,000
GMAP P*Shark
Boerum Hill
442 State Street
Brown Harris Stevens
Sunday, 12:00-1:30
$3,500,000
GMAP P*Shark
Park Slope
98 6th Avenue
Corcoran
Sunday, 2:00-4:00
$3,300,000
GMAP P*Shark
Williamsburg
267 Ainslie Street
Aptsandlofts.com
Sunday, 12:00-2:00
$1,595,000
GMAP P*Shark
DOT Reworks Cadman Plaza West Sidewalk
It’s not only the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge that’s getting attention from the DOT. The stretch of Cadman Plaza around the exit ramp that drivers take to access the BQE is being made more pedestrian-friendly as we write. A curb extension (or “neckdown”) is being added at the southeast corner of Middagh Street and Cadman Plaza West while an entirely new sidewalk is being installed between Middagh and where the exit ramp feeds out to Old Fulton Street. Right now a pedestrian has no way to safely continue down the east side of Cadman Plaza West towards the Brooklyn Bridge underpass. These changes should help address that.
Condo of the Day: 50 Bridge Street, #609
This new loft listing at 50 Bridge Street is huge and pretty well priced for Dumbo. The defining feature of the loft apartment is the great room, which has 15-foot ceilings, freestanding columns and a circular staircase to the mezzanine level. Despite its size, though, the apartment’s not currently designed for family living, with only a single master bedroom. Nor is it designed to building codes, apparently. “Use of this loft does not conform to building department standards,” says the listing. “Consult an architect for further details.” That could explain why such a large place in Dumbo is asking just $1,500,000. A buying opportunity or a bureaucratic nightmare? You decide.
50 Bridge Street, #609 [Brown Harris Stevens] GMAP P*Shark
Cute Farmhouse Near Kingston for Sale
Here’s a cute farmhouse close to Kingston, N.Y., that’s for sale for $360,000. Some of the renovation choices miss the mark but otherwise nice land and bones.
552 Lucas Avenue Extension, Kingston, N.Y. [Win Morrison Realty] GMAP
Condo of the Day: 85 North 3rd Street, #306
The owner of this 1,797-square-foot loft in one of our favorite Williamsburg condos — The Mill Building — found out that selling an apartment isn’t always as easy as it looks. This place was on the market as an FSBO for the month of April at $2,095,000. Now it’s back on with Douglas Elliman for $2,150,000. It’s a big place with lovely original wood beams and floors as well as high ceilings. The only negative we can see is that there is only one exposure and the apartment goes back pretty deep into the center of the building (floor plan here), meaning that the parts of the apartment don’t get a lot of natural light. Otherwise, very sweet pad.
85 North 3rd Street, #306 [Douglas Elliman] GMAP P*Shark
New Commercial Building Rising at 468 Baltic Street
There’s a new three-story building on Baltic Street between Bond and Nevins streets. According to the DOB permit, the new structure will have about 9,400 square feet of space and be devoted to light manufacturing. This is interesting if for no other reason than it’s rare to see someone building a new commercial building in this part of town these days. As far as we can tell, most longtime landowners around here — and farther in Crown Heights, for example — are sitting around waiting to cash in for a residential rezoning. GMAP
Condo of the Day: 306 Gold Street, #25D
If new(ish) condos in Downtown Brooklyn are your thing, this two-bedroom pad on the 25th floor of the Oro is definitely worth a look. The views through the wall of windows in the living room are great and the floors look much nicer than you usually see in new construction. On top of that, both bedrooms are decent-sized and there are two bathrooms to boot. Asking price for the 1,092-square-foot apartment is $970,000. Historically that would be a high valuation for this part of town but in this market historical pricing doesn’t seem to matter much.
306 Gold Street, #25D [Town Residential] GMAP P*Shark
Co-op of the Day: 28 Old Fulton Street, #5E
It’s rare to stumble across a listing these days that looks like a good value, but this two-bedroom loft in the old Eagle Warehouse at 28 Old Fulton Street is about the closest thing we’ve seen in a while. To start, there’s a large open living area with high, beamed ceilings and original columns. Then there are the Brooklyn Bridge views. As far as we can tell, the apartment has around 1,800 square feet, making the asking price of $1,350,000 look low, at least in comparison to Dumbo to the North and Brooklyn Heights to the South. At $1,341 a month, the maintenance is pretty low too.
28 Old Fulton Street, #5E [Town Residential] GMAP P*Shark
The Brooklyn Real Estate Market Summed Up in One Flyer
Corcoran broker Andrea Yarrington sent this summary of the townhouse sales in Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Bed Stuy as part of a marketing mailer last week. Whether you’ve been in the market or not, if you’re reading this blog chances are you have heard plenty of anecdotes about mobbed open houses, multiple bids and all-cash offers. This one-pager is about the best summary of the market over the past few months that we’ve seen. Pretty amazing.
Open House Picks
Boerum Hill
230 Bergen Street
Corcoran
Sunday, 2:00-3:30
$2,800,000
GMAP P*Shark
Carroll Gardens
12 3rd Place
Realty Collective
Saturday, 1:00-3:00
$1,799,000
GMAP P*Shark
Ditmas Park
271 Stratford Road
Brooklyn Hearth Realty
Sunday, 2:00-4:00
$1,645,000
GMAP P*Shark
Bed Stuy
16 Stuyvesant Avenue
Douglas Elliman
Saturday, 12:00-2:00; Sunday, 2:00-4:00
$625,000
GMAP P*Shark
1000 Dean Street Progress Report
It’s been a long time since we’ve blogged about the progress at 1000 Dean Street, our joint venture with BFC Partners and Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group to convert the former Studebaker Service Station into a vibrant commercial center in Crown Heights. (Here’s the post from last year announcing the project.) As you may have read, the ground floor of the building will end up containing a 25,000-square-foot kitchen incubator being built and run by 3rd Ward as well as a 9,000-square-foot beer hall and food court featuring a handful of Smorgasburg and Brooklyn Flea vendors. The three upper floors (of roughly 35,000 square feet each) have been designed to accommodate a wide range of commercial tenant sizes, from 700 square feet up to a full floor. We are hoping that these will be ready for occupancy sometime this fall. If you are a large tenant, please email Chris Havens at chavens@aptsandlofts.com and if you are a smaller tenant please fill out this survey to be contacted when leasing is beginning for smaller spaces. In the meantime, please enjoy some construction photos on the jump, some of which show off the two light wells that we are cutting into the middle of the building. And for comparison’s sake, check out the facade of the building when we started.
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Condo of the Day: 401 Hicks Street, #B6E
This two-bedroom duplex at The Arches in Cobble Hill is interesting — interesting as in it’s not your average cookie cutter apartment, and that has some good things about it and some not-so-good things. The living space features big windows and double-height ceilings (good!) but the upper level has some awkward dormer ceilings and oddly placed windows. The terrace is a nice feature, but unfortunately it’s off the master bedroom rather than the living room. Overall, the place is in very good shape (having been renovated in 2005) but the finishes are relatively charmless in our opinion (stuck in that ‘taint of the the design spectrum, neither vintage nor modern). Asking price for the 1,250-square-foot condo is $1,200,000.
401 Hicks Street [Corcoran] GMAP P*Shark
Check Out This Modern House in the Palisades
It’s a bit of a stretch to call the Palisades “upstate” but that doesn’t mean it can’t be in our Upstate Listings. The 4,500-square-foot house sits on 2.6 acres and is less than half an hour from the city. Not sure about the artisanal dining opportunities though. Check out the listing here. If Columbia County is more up your alley, check out those listings here.
Condo of the Day: 55 Berry Street, #2F
This two-bedroom condo in the converted industrial building at 55 Berry Street just hit the market with an asking price of $1,495,000. Given that this place is the same price as yesterday’s Condo of the Day in Dumbo but 10 percent smaller, it seems like a bit of a stretch to us. Williamsburg is on fire, though, so who the heck knows! This place has a lot of windows and a nice open plan. Personally, we like the finishes in yesterday’s apartment a little better.
55 Berry Street, #2F [Corcoran] GMAP P*Shark
Open Houses Tonight in Brooklyn
Even though it’s a Wednesday, there are several open houses going on tonight. Below are listings from the Marketplace (complete with their verbatim broker babble) that will be opening their doors open later tonight.
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Amazon Photo Studio Build-Out Under Way at 35 Kent
Last November, word got out that online retailing behemoth Amazon was renting a 40,000-square-foot warehouse on Kent Avenue in Williamsburg to create a facility for photographing the zillions of products it sells on its website. At the time, a spokesperson for the company did have this to say about the location: “We think of it as joining an emerging neighborhood that’s known for its creative talent and community. It’s going to be a mecca — we hope — for creative talent.” The exact location was not disclosed, but it won’t come as any surprise to anyone who’s ridden a bike up Kent recently and taken note of the construction project under way between North 11th and North 12th Streets to learn that the address for the project is 35 Kent Avenue. According to the building permits, the renovation is a “Type One application for change in use and enlargement from glass manufacturing to photo studio and offices.” The project cost estimate on the application is for $4.16 million, so it’s safe to assume the actual cost will probably be north of $5 million. GMAP






May 16, 2013 | 09:04 AM