Urban Market opened Friday at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge at 11 Broadway. The 16,000-square-foot store is an offshoot of Key Food and aims to offer both upscale and basic items, according to a press release sent out by landlord L+M Development Partners. The store features a gourmet deli with a kosher section, a full-service seafood department, and locally sourced and organic products. It is located near some recently opened luxury apartment buildings, artisanal grocer Marlow & Daughters, and the area’s large Hasidic community. The new store has 20 parking spaces. GMAP
This four-story brownstone at 789 Quincy Street has a nice amount of original detail, but looks like it could use a little polishing. The listing says it’s “fully functioning and awaiting your cosmetic upgrades.” It’s in the northeast corner of Bed Stuy near Broadway and the Gates stop. How do you like it and the ask of $895,000?
Small real estate brokerages are doing well in brownstone neighborhoods in Brooklyn, according to the Times, where buyers seek their local expertise and deep connections. In Bed Stuy, Evans & Nye is becoming known for having sold some of the most beautifully appointed and highest priced brownstones in the neighborhood, many just under $2,000,000. In April, the firm sold a limestone by Magnus Dahlander at 242 Decatur Street, above, for $1,700,000.
Firm co-founder Ban Leow is a long-time resident and owns the furniture and antique store CasaBAN across the street from his real estate office on Tompkins. It also helps that one of the firm’s agents, Morgan Munsey, is a walking encyclopedia of Bed Stuy architecture and seems to know every resident of the area. Over in Victorian Flatbush, the 93-year-old Mary Kay Gallagher has flourished for almost 50 years by charting a similar path. She is famous for her deep knowledge of the area, where she also lives. Her three-person family firm sold a colonial on Westminister Road for $2,000,000 this past fall, a record.
If you are buying or selling, do you look for a big name or a small one?
In a five-part series, The New York Times followed an 11-year-old girl living with six siblings and her parents in a homeless shelter in Fort Greene. The story contrasts the appalling conditions at the Auburn Family Residence at 39 Auburn Place — it has made headlines for years for having no heat and other problems — with the changes in the surrounding neighborhood. Mice dart in and out of a crumbling wall. A hair dryer warms the baby’s crib.
“City and state inspectors have repeatedly cited the shelter for deplorable conditions, including sexual misconduct by staff members, spoiled food, asbestos exposure, lead paint and vermin,” said the Times. “Auburn has no certificate of occupancy, as required by law, and lacks an operational plan that meets state regulations. Most of the shelter’s smoke detectors and alarms have been found to be inoperable.” Click through to the story for photos reminiscent of Jacob Riis’ “How the Other Half Lives.”
Outside, “the skyline soars with luxury towers, beacons of a new gilded age. More than 200 miles of fresh bike lanes connect commuters to high-tech jobs, passing through upgraded parks and avant-garde projects like the High Line and Jane’s Carousel. Posh retail has spread from its Manhattan roots to the city’s other boroughs. These are the crown jewels of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s long reign…as the city reorders itself around the whims of the wealthy.”
The parents are unemployed and have had problems with drug addiction, while the number of families living in homeless shelters has grown since a 2004 Bloomberg policy that no longer gives homeless priority for public housing.
More than 22,000 children are homeless in New York City, “the highest number since the Great Depression, in the most unequal metropolis in America,” said the story. “One in five American children is now living in poverty, giving the United States the highest child poverty rate of any developed nation except for Romania.”
The family is trying to save money to move to Pennsylvania. When asked why families are staying longer in the shelter system, Bloomberg said it was because they offer “a much more pleasurable experience than they ever had before.”
Invisible Child [NY Times] Photo by Scott Scott Bintner for PropertyShark
We saw this limestone on the house tour a few years back when it was under construction by the contractor who has owned it since 2002. Now it’s on the market for $3,000,000, which would certainly set a record for a townhouse in Bed Stuy, as BK to the Fullest was the first to point out.
It’s in Stuyvesant Heights and it has five units, including a large owner’s duplex with a 20-foot extension on both floors, as well as a parking space. It’s 4,000 square feet and was designed by Axel Hedman, according to BK to the Fullest. There is a catch, however. It’s not finished.
The top floor of the extension is “framed out” for a kitchen, dining room, and master bath. There are two working fireplaces and a jacuzzi, but otherwise it’s just studs, no walls. DOB shows a stop work order and open violation from 2004 for construction without a permit.
There might be another catch too. It was an SRO at one time. HPD says the building has six “B” class apartments, although the BOD shows two prior owners filed to change the certificate of occupancy. It will be delivered vacant, according to the listing.
The current record holder for a townhouse sale in Bed Stuy is a Parfitt Brothers-designed Queen Anne two-family at 254 Gates Avenue. It sold for $2,200,000 in January.
What do you think? Is Bed Stuy ready to command Park Slope prices now?
A run-down but historic building at 71 Irving Place has been gutted and renovated and is back on the market. Last year, a section of the facade of the multifamily apartment building crumbled while it was for sale for $975,000. At the time, it was marketed as a gut renovation, not a teardown.
The new owners, Big Brooklyn Rehab Company, picked it up for $750,000 and decided to turn it into a three-family. They set up the 1870s brick building as a 2,500-square-foot owners duplex with two floor-through apartments above. Each unit has central air and three to four bedrooms. There are wide-plank oak floors, white lacquer cabinets, marble counters, vented range hoods, vented washers and dryers, and a roof deck. The ask for the whole building is $2,500,000.
Yesterday, the City Council was supposed to vote on the proposed towers at 77 Commercial Street, above, part of the controversial and massive high-rise development plan for the Greenpoint waterfront. But the City Council postponed its vote, DNAinfo reported, citing the need for “further negotiations.” A date for the vote, which is the final and binding vote on the project, was not given. The local community board opposes the development, and said more affordable housing, senior housing, and transportation is needed.
This house has some amazing architectural details, although it’s going to take a bit of polishing to restore it to its former glory. A buyer might want to undo some unfortunate alterations, such as exposed brick, popcorn ceilings, and a modern tile floor in one of the bathrooms.
We think it’ll be worth it: The house has some exuberant Aesthetic Movement details you don’t see every day, including kicky fireplace tile, elaborate crown moldings over the doors and windows, mahogany inlay floors, impressive geometric ceiling medallions, seven original light fixtures, and scenic stained glass in the bathrooms.
Happily, it also has a relatively new roof, boiler, windows and hot water heater. Do you think it’s a good deal for $1,200,000?
A Sleep Inn Hotel is going up at 2590 Stillwell Avenue in Coney Island, Amusing the Zillion reported. The Sleep Inn will have 12,989 square feet of space on a 13,000-square-foot lot.
The building will be four stories with 53 units, according to a new building application for which permits were issued in October. Based on photos from Amusing the Zillion, looks like the foundation is in and the walls are starting to rise. It will be the area’s “first new hotel in many decades,” said the blog.
