Carlton Mews "On Life Support"?

It's been a year since the owners of Carlton Mews, the church-conversion-plus-new-townhouse development in Fort Greene, received the green light from LPC but other than a little clearing not much has happened in the meantime. According to a well-placed source, the project is "on life support" right now, presumably a victim of the current financing environment. What a bummer it would be if this didn't happen. Update: A tipster emailed to tell us that the original owner of this site sold the development rights to the current developer but held onto the land. The result? If the deal doesn't go through, he ends up keeping downpayment for development rights and still owns the land.
LPC Gives Go-Ahead to Carlton Mews Project [Brownstoner] GMAP P*Shark DOB

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Comments

How sad! I hope they find a way to pull it off.

Posted by: guest at March 3, 2008 10:50 AM

I guess the real estate market in Fort Greene is strong for houses that are already built but not strong enough for banks to bet on the construction of new product.

Posted by: guest at March 3, 2008 12:27 PM

Owner seems like a nice, old-school fort greene amateur developer. You really need an established, well-seasoned developer (experienced in this particular kind of development, small scale niche stuff) to pull something this complex off.

Posted by: guest at March 3, 2008 12:52 PM

How diffiuclt is this really? A vacant lot that you can build houses on and a defunct church to adapt to something else. It isn't as if there are major obstacles, or no more than any other site in the people's republic of brooklyn.

Posted by: guest at March 3, 2008 12:56 PM

What a bummer that would be, indeed. I'm actually amazed that anybody would take this on. Even just from the outside, the church is so severely crumbled that it almost looks beyond saving. It even has one of those spray-painted boxes with an X through it, which I thought basically meant a building was too dangerous even to enter (I could be wrong about that).

But it's an amazing block, and the vacant land behind that church is sooo ripe. Come on, developer--get it together!

Posted by: Rehab at March 3, 2008 1:27 PM

I think this project was another victim of the faster-than-usual downzoning of Fort Greene.

The several units they would lose with the lower height and floor area allowances could be enough to throw off all budgeting. In other words, those lost units could have made the difference between profit and loss for the developer.

It is a pity, because the plans seem to respond really nicely to the neighborhood without trying to replicate it.

Posted by: guest at March 3, 2008 1:41 PM

Is this true? Or is it speculation. What effect, if any, would the downzoning have on the original proposal?

Posted by: Putnamdenizen at March 3, 2008 2:54 PM

actually they are pretty seasoned folks (albeit of the younger set). i, too, hope the project happens. it is a thoughtful, well conceived vision for that ugly lot.

Posted by: guest at March 3, 2008 4:54 PM

It is really about survival of the fittest. if this team can't develop the site now, someone else will develop it in the future, and probably with a better scheme.

I think they skimped on architectural talent and services. always a bad idea.

Posted by: guest at March 3, 2008 5:21 PM

5:21 wrote:
'I think they skimped on architectural talent and services. always a bad idea.'

????????????

where did that come from?
who are you, renzo piano?

looks fine to me.

Posted by: guest at March 3, 2008 7:30 PM