First Closing at the Vermeil

even with price cuts these are doomed

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 11:41 AM

That's not a photo of the Vermeil. Wrong picture.

Honestly I think a big part of the technical problems on this website is the fact that every single advertiser here must have a moving ad. What's with that?

Moving ads are irritating and I will specifically and purposely NOT click on them!

Hate those things.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 11:43 AM

Love that copper.

IMHO, prices are a baseline, and like everything can be negotiated.

these developers were at least smart enough to realize that the peoples of Brooklyn want more 3br apartments and they also want the parking for their cars.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 11:43 AM

Love that copper.

IMHO, prices are a baseline, and like everything can be negotiated.

these developers were at least smart enough to realize that the peoples of Brooklyn want more 3br apartments and they also want the parking for their cars.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 11:43 AM

11:43. Not sure what you are talking about. That most DEFINITELY is a picture of the Vermeil. Corner of 7th and Sterling. I walk by it every single day.

I think it looks very well done. The copper is great. There is also an attached brownstone facing 7th Avenue that is also a part of the Vermeil and is currently having its facade redone. It looks good.

I was skeptical about this place as it's taken so long to get off the ground, but the quality of construction really seems above average.

I hope they sell some more units.

The location can't be beat.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 11:50 AM

this is going to crash & burn

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 11:53 AM

Oh, I was thinking of the facade that faces 7th Avenue. I hadn't seen the copper facade on the side-street yet. Isn't the address for the Vermeil on 7th? So that would be the front?

I saw a model unit over a year ago priced at $1.6 million. Its small kitchen was crammed into the corner of a not-huge living room. The bathrooms were too trendy with mosaic tiles and glass vessel bowl sinks, which were already dated over a year ago so they'd really seem so now. Not too practical for families, either. The 3rd bedroom didn't have a closet and was really just a small office. All in all for $1.6 million it was depressing. It's a great location being near the B/Q but I can completely understand why the bigger $2.1 million penthouse would sell but not the smaller units.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 12:04 PM

Someone moved into the 3rd floor front corner about a week ago.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 12:07 PM

There sure are suckers out there. 2 mil for a second floor unit...ouch.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 12:08 PM

Someone moved into the 3rd floor front corner about a week ago.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 12:08 PM

I find it strange that the editorial entries and comments on Brownstoner almost seem to relish the idea that these new developments may not be selling - yet for the life of me I can not understand why anyone that claims to love Brooklyn would root for investment in Brooklyn to fail?

Especially when the investment, in case like this - is a "in-context" and architecturally interesting yet tasteful design.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 12:16 PM

One of the few high-quality, nicely designed buildings around.

I love what they'd done with it.

It has a nice interaction with the street. Very welcoming. The new entrance doors on the Sterling side are beautiful.

I think these may take a little while to sell, but they'll do it. They've already lowered prices a bit from last year when they were shoddily being represented by BHS.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 12:17 PM

In my opinion, this is the absolute best area of Park Slope.

A 2 minute walk to either the 2/3 and Q trains, a 3 minute walk to the Greenmarket and Prospect Park and a 5 minute walk to all the good shops and restaurants on 5th.

I'm sure they are mostly marketing these to transplanted Manhattanites because of the great access to transportation to downtown and midtown.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 12:23 PM

Still a wee bit pricey, no?

$2.1m for 1758sf?

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 12:26 PM

12:23 so how do you explain them not selling in 2 yrs?

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 12:32 PM

In this market, you could make an offer and see what happens. I'm sure they don't want to hold onto these much longer. They've been under construction for what seems like years.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 12:33 PM

This was built on the vacant lot where the passenger jet crashed and killed a bunch of people in the sixties -right?
If that is the lot then it is in the historic district. that may help explain why it fits in nicely. The building has a nice location, nice design, parking(a wonderful amenity), what's not to like?

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 12:38 PM

12:32:

I think they are great, but still a little too expensive.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 12:38 PM

this is going to crash & burn? - Ouch

as for 12:23 PM
- the eternally optomistic reader who always chimes in - no matter how overpriced, under-renovated or poorly located the property is -this person always has something nice to say!

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 12:41 PM

At those prices, seems like most potential Manhattan transplants would stay in Manhattan.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 12:42 PM

12:38....that is indeed the spot.

and yes, it is in the historic district. they've done an excellent job with this building. wish there was a picture of the 7th avenue side. it looks nice from all angles.

i've been contemplating make a low offer to see if i could get one. i think it would make a good investment.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 12:42 PM

12:41....i think the property is overpriced, but not poorly located.

the only flaw i see is price and that is something that can be changed or fixed.

as for quality and location, i think both are superior.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 12:48 PM

I went to an open house there last summer. They had one model unit ready but the building was a total construction zone. The unit seemed nice enough (though I agree that they erred on the trendy side of things) with good light and was generally well-constructed. When the surprisingly uninterested agent handed my the prospectus I couldn't reconcile the prices though. Even now they still strike me as too high by a good 10-20% if not more.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 12:49 PM

The apartments seems sized for families but the building is in District 13 which has sub-par schools. Anyone paying $1 mill plus who has kids would surely want to be in a better school district.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 1:05 PM

Why would you want to copper NOT to turn green? The natural patina is the most interesting part.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 1:07 PM

I would only move there if the copper did turn green with oxidation. Love that.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 1:09 PM

Yes, the copper is a nice touch. And the beauty is, it can be stripped and cashed in to the junkyard when the Depression hits.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 1:09 PM

great block. Nice, friendly kids who sit on the stoops across the street and chat with the police cars who often stop to chit chat with them. Awesome dudes who sell drugs on the corner by the pool hall and sometimes gun at each other late at night. Also, historic with great train access, so you can pontificate on not needing to buy a parking spot if you want to be a total park slope douche.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 1:17 PM

Another indication that the housing slow down is not affecting high priced real estate. Keep it coming people I am selling my North Slope brownstone soon. YIPPEEE!!

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 1:18 PM

Most people in the North Slope have vacation homes.

A car comes in handy.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 1:40 PM

totally agree, 1:17 - this is a crime infested slum of a block

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 1:41 PM

"Another indication that the housing slow down is not affecting high priced real estate."

Units not selling for two years is no indication?

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 1:42 PM

1:17 and 1:41 have never been to park slope.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 1:47 PM

1:17 here- I've lived around the block from the building in question for 10 years. I've been been involved with the neighborhood and block association efforts to get the drugs off the corner and get the police to face up to the facts of the beating and shooting that go on during the weekend nights on the corner of flatbush and 7th and at the pool hall. I don't think it's
a slum of a block like that other poster, but please, don't ignore what's going on there. Read the brooklyn rail story recently on how people were afraid to walk these blocks even up through the 90s. (You'll find nice info on the mural that brownstoner has asked about in the past).

There is an active drug trade on these blocks that radiates out from the flatbush/7th intersection. The police seem to hover around it but it never goes away. Maybe they're complicit. I don't see how they can't be when it's so out in the open.
While this building was under construction, there was all sorts of scuzzy activity going on in the contruction partitions late at night. People are regularly getting mugged on sterling in this part of town. There was an underpublicized shooting in front of the pool hall on Flatbush- across the street over the holidays.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 2:01 PM

The pool hall was just renovated and is QUITE a bit more upscale now. It was just last week highlighted as one of the best pool halls in the city.

I also live around the corner from here, and find that people who have lived in more dangerous areas of Brooklyn pre 1990's are unable to accept the fact that it has changed. That is apparent in your post, 2:01.

There was sketchy activity on that corner because it was dark and covered with scaffolding with a broken bulb.

That would happen on ANY corner of NYC given those same circumstances. Even Park Avenue.

I don't argue that there is drug dealing...I just saw someone buy drugs last night on West End Avenue at 84 Street on the Upper West Side.

That doesn't make it sketchy.

I always see cops around, I rarely if ever see any of the bad element you speak of and I almost never hear about a crime, other than a 4am bar fight.

This area is an extremely safe one. You are painting a picture that makes more sense if this were 1995.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 2:09 PM

outright accusing nypd of druge trafficking?

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 2:09 PM

There is a guy standing outside the Q station most weekdays surrounded by a bunch of lookouts openly dealing. The cops make busts or walkthroughs almost every week on this set of blocks. There are entire nights where they will pull up all the vans and unmarked and take over all the intersections-happens at least once a monht. It always comes right back after they leave. I've seen the lookouts whistle the dealer away as the cops stroll down the street. You'd have to be pretty blind not to notice. At night it's even more blatant.

I think most people who have to walk their dogs at late at night or get home late from work would acknoledge all this.

Others rush home from the train after a 9-7 workday and don't go back out and have no idea what happens right in front of their own houses. Ask the doorman on Park Place at the new condo if he thinks it's safe. He'll tell you to watch out and talk about all the open dealing he sees as well as the fights and muggings. I live here- I'm not leaving. I love the block and the brownstones, but don't pretend it's fancy and super safe. This is a major urban intersection with a 24 hour drug presence that gets worse on weekends when there are more weekenders and drunks on flatbush.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 2:25 PM

2:09 PM- if you think that open, organized dealing doesn't make a place sketchy- you are either a regular customer or you're just dumb. That's the sort of voluntary blindness that allowed NYC to slip into the kind of dangerous haze it was enveloped in until the mid-nineties. When there are dealers who are unafraid of flaunting their business on a large scale, you end up with blocks held hostage and violence feeling like a constant threat. Anyone remember Ave B and 7th street- there used to be a guy who would tell you if you could park there or not, and guys pointing guns at you from the rooftops.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 2:29 PM

"There is a guy standing outside the Q station"

First of all, that is 3-4 blocks away from the condo being highlighted here today. 3-4 blocks in NYC might as well be a mile.

I've never had the problems you seem to have and I'm around here...day/night all the time.

If you don't think the North Slope is pretty fancy, you need to get out more.

Drug dealing happens in every single neighborhood in the city. Just like there are Meth labs all over the suburbs.

You do realize that every single person I know who lives in Park Slope smokes pot, right?

They gotta get it somewhere....

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 2:32 PM

i've walked by here every day for years and never once noticed the open air drug dealing these posters speak of.

there IS a really funny homeless guy who asks for change outside the q though.

you people love to make mountains out of mole hills.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 2:38 PM

"This is a major urban intersection"

Um....7th Avenue and Flatbush is a major Urban intersection??? Compared to what? Rural Ohio???

Flatbush and Atlantic yes...42nd and Broadway, yes, Houston and Broadway, yes...even Flatbush and 5th, which would be a stretch.

But 7th and Flatbush??

You've lived in sleepy little Park Slope far too long, dollface.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 2:42 PM

you get mad at the people who notice the problem because you wish it weren't there

The Q train is across the street from this building. Not 3-4 blocks away. (That's why it's listed as a selling point by some poster above.)

There is a real dealer presence and problem with muggings and beatings in this entire 3-4 block area. If you chose to ignore it, you are the perfect oblivious park slope style target. The product being sold is not pot, and no I didn't realize everyone you know smokes pot, since I don't know you.

Yes- the guy with the eye patch who asks for change has a sense of humor about his situation, but even he stays away from the dealers and gun toters. Ask him if you like about what goes on around there when you are turning the other way.

Peace to all of you- go back to your bliss

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 2:48 PM

The dollface comment doesn't lend any credence your words. No one said it was times square, and you're arguing a point that was beyond minor with regards to what everyone else was arguing about.

One thing though- watch out for the dollar vans over at the quaint crossroad idyll you're describing-- they pad ever so softly through this one lane dirt road and sometimes don't stop to punch the horn before coming close to the damsels and gents strolling off towards the american apparel and points beyond

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 2:53 PM

"The Q train is across the street from this building."

You need to look at a map, honey. Your statement is an outright lie.

The Q Train stop is ON Flatbush, right next to American Apparel.

To get to the Vermeil you have to walk down Flatbush past the Card Shop, the Chinese and Mexican places and the Liquor Store, make a left onto 7th, walk past Park Place and then to Sterling.

From the data I just looked at, including Crime Stats, Police Blotters and the mugging map, I see ZERO indication of any of the crimes in which you speak.

I think you are that crazy old lady I see all the time in the neighborhood.

Are you at the Brooklyn Library typing this now??

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 2:58 PM

The bitter broker from Brown Harris Stevens who lost the job of marketing the Vermeil condos is out in full force today trying to convince people that Park Slope is as crime ridden as Avenue B in the 90's.

Don't you have some other overpriced schlock you should be trying to sell???

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 3:01 PM

What an idiot. That's just happy powder they sell on the corner. Who would get mad over that? Like dude said above- every single suburb is teeming with meth labs, therefore you should all be psyched, or something, Ya know- I mean, like everyone smokes dank, right? Don't insult park slope with talk of urbanity... Unless we want to be viewed as urban, in which case we'll tell you exactly how sophisticated and urban it is over here, got it?

Also, you people who say bad things have clearly never been to park slope, unless that is, of course, that you've been here too long, so you don't count because you've become old an weird and bitter, but that won't happen to us current defenders of park slope because we've been here just the right amount of time and we find old patchy the homeless guy to be a perfectly nice meme to complement our fancy but not too fancy neighborhood.

So the moral is that you should buy the house for 2MM next to the methlab and then smile when it blows up because you deserve it, you suburban fucker, or if not, then move to the city, and thank heavens for the muggers and dealers because they are like the wolves and woodpeckers that the antienvironmentalist crime haters almost destroyed with their greenhouse gases and overhunting. So, ya know, don't buy that parking spot.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 3:04 PM

sorry...but any person who calls this area (even remotely) a drug and crime infested slum is the idiot.

liked your post though, 3:04.

it's fun to make fun of the slopers, even though it was the moron who called it a slum that started all of it.

it's kinda like selective hearing, don't ya think??

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 3:17 PM

can't hear you - I'm too old and creaky. I only see drug dealers.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 3:29 PM

I am glad Brownstoner followed my advice to get his clicks moving in the right direction again. Park Slope! Park Slope! Park Slope! Today's other lame topics get no more than ~15 comments.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 5:13 PM

Park Slope is a played hellhole.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 5:34 PM

if there weren't the server problem, this thread would have been to 200 by now.

a lot of people aren't commenting because of the annoyance of it not working properly, i think.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 5:35 PM

Credit crisis impacting the server?

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 5:52 PM

7:15,

15 of the 22 units are still available, so you probably won't lose another bidding war.

Posted by: guest at March 25, 2008 8:02 PM

Bless you Robbie for cheering me up, you funny, funny man. After reading this post inundated with delusional posters I could definitely use a laugh.

Posted by: guest at March 26, 2008 10:44 AM

maggie gyllenhall and peter sarsgaard live on sterling.

Posted by: guest at March 26, 2008 2:33 PM

Just had my first peak at the Vermeil website. Funny thing, the building is zoned for PS 282, just a couple of blocks around the corner on Sixth Avenue. But "282" doesn't appear on the site's "lifestyle" page. (They mislabeled the location as Berkeley Carroll, a nearby private school.) Somehow they did manage to plot distant PSs 321 and 372, as well as a bunch of public schools as far away as 16th & 18th Streets. It would be unkind and perhaps inflammatory to suggest a motive behind the error. Suffice to say that my kids got a fine education at 282 and have done well at terrific junior high schools and high schools since then.

Posted by: guest at March 26, 2008 3:10 PM

How many people spending $2M for a 3 bedroom are going to be sending their kids to public schools?

Posted by: guest at April 9, 2008 4:04 PM