« Vox Pop Sells Shares, Claims Survival Walkabout with Montrose: Terra Cotta Delights »

March 31, 2009

Abandoned Projects Mar Brooklyn Landscape

windsor-terrace-flickr-0309.jpg
"It looks like a bomb hit over here. It's just blocks and blocks of everything torn down, and most of the permits are expired," Williamsburg housing activist Philip DePaolo told the Daily News. "What's going to happen to all these sites? It's blight." Aborted development projects and their related quality of life problems are increasingly becoming a quality of life issue now that construction has ground to a halt on all but a few of the borough's residential projects. "Speculators came in hoping to make money and ruined a nice residential neighborhood," said Robert Bennett of the six-story condo development at 2485 Ocean Avenue in Sheepshead Bay which went quiet about a year ago. And developers don't have any incentive to clean up or sell off their half-finished projects, as DOB doesn't levy fines unless specific safety hazards can be cited. What are some problem sites near where you live?
Building Skeletons Haunting Brooklyn Nabes [NY Daily News]
Photo by urbbk




Posted by Brownstoner at 10:32 AM | Comments (21)
Categories: Development, Quality of Life

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.brownstoner.com/mte/mt-tb.cgi/9067

Comments

that pic is the architectural equivalent of a mullet. business in front, party in the back.

Posted by: goldie at March 31, 2009 10:36 AM

Albee Square/City Point
384/388 Bridge Street
80% of the Red Apple stretch of Myrtle
the entire BAM Cultural District

Posted by: zinka at March 31, 2009 10:42 AM

There is a building on 5th Avenue between Prospect Ave and 16th street that has stalled. When they first started (a little over a year ago?) they were going at break-neck speed. Now, it's been sitting idle for quite a few months. No workers on site. Nothing. Any clue what's going on there? Typical 'ran out of money' or 'crappy economy syndrome"?

Posted by: InsertSnappyNameHere at March 31, 2009 10:46 AM

PLG has fewer of these sites than most neighborhoods, but, off the top of my head, there's:

The 185 Ocean Avenue hole, next to the soon-to-be new HD

The Lincoln Road "tower"--i.e. hole

An unfinished building on Hawthorne Street, where construction seems to have stopped long before the bubble burst

An unfinished condo building on Sterling III

Just south of PLG, a vacant lot next to "Lefferts South"

I'm sure I've left some out

Posted by: Bob Marvin at March 31, 2009 10:46 AM

Does anyone know if work continues on the building that had the fire on Stuyvesant bet Macon & Halsey??? I haven't seen any activity of late but I get home after 6:00 usually.

Posted by: daveinbedstuy at March 31, 2009 10:49 AM

goldie, that was gold. ahhahahah


*rob*

Posted by: PitbullNYC at March 31, 2009 10:55 AM

Thank you! Thank you! How many Retards was saying Albee Square Mall was a dump???!! These Retards never set one foot in there! They tore down a perfectly good building and left a gapping hole!

Albee Square/City Point
384/388 Bridge Street
80% of the Red Apple stretch of Myrtle
the entire BAM Cultural District

Dead Pool or Stalled Pool or Blight Me? City Point Not Moving

http://www.gowanuslounge.com/2009/02/18/dead-pool-or-stalled-pool-or-blight-me-city-point-not-moving/

We don’t know what’s up at City Point, the once grand development planned at a property originally owned by developer Joe Sitt–the Galleria Mall that he promised to turn into the “Belaggio” of shopping malls. (Guess “Bellagio” is Italian for sell it and tear it down?) In any case, what’s signficant about this, other the fact that the project is shrinking faster than one’s (deleted) in the waters off Coney Island this time of year

Albee Square Mall RIP..

The What

Someday this war is gonna end...

Posted by: Return of The What at March 31, 2009 10:58 AM

the government should just finish these projects up and make them affordable to lower and middle income individuals and when i say middle income i dont mean someone with a duane reade part time cashier salary, i mean people with an actual median income of say 4o-50K instead of wasting 250 million dollars to paint a bridge. i just read about this morning. 250 million dollars to paint a bridge!? please, give me and 249 other people a million bucks each and we'll have that painted by 8pm tonight.

*rob*

Posted by: PitbullNYC at March 31, 2009 10:59 AM

250 million dollars to paint a bridge!? please, give me and 249 other people a million bucks each and we'll have that painted by 8pm tonight.

Rob, that is the truest and funniest staement i have read in quite some time

Posted by: Troy McClure at March 31, 2009 11:17 AM

It isn't a victim of the current economic collapse, but for longevity alone I have to nominate the building on Clinton Avenue, just north of Myrtle. The church on Waverly poured the foundation and put up the structural steel a decade or so ago and there it sits. It's like the Ben Franklin 'ghost house' in Philadelphia, only rustier.

Posted by: altervoce at March 31, 2009 11:32 AM

The enormous hole in the ground at Court Street ("The Collection") near Sackett has got to be one of worst ones.

Posted by: Carol Gardens at March 31, 2009 11:42 AM

Also not a victim of the recent collapse, but the Carroll Gardens Hell building on Carroll Street continues to sit. And sit.

Posted by: Brooklyn Chicken at March 31, 2009 11:50 AM

SDS Procida- should clean up their ghost lot on the corner of Congress and Hicks! Money aside,I don't think it means the neighborhood should have to live with their mess,at least maintain the property while you are looking for financing! There is trash all over, the neighborhood is left to deal with a very dangerous pedestrian blind spot caused by their sidewalk shed and panels of their shed that fall down every time there is a strong wind.

I am sure this is the case with a lot of the other frozen sites too.

Posted by: cobblehook at March 31, 2009 12:05 PM

The late and much-missed Bob Guskind had begun a serious commitment to watchdog this issue, which he correctly predicted was going to be huge and growing, on GL; it's good to see some watchdoggery happening here. Would be great if someone could pick up the banner and do either a blog or a regular feature on this to keep the pressure on. (Funny, isn't it, how unthinkable it is that any of our local Old Media would rise to the challenge?)

Posted by: Brenda from Flatbush at March 31, 2009 12:21 PM

There's this project called Atlantic Yards? Near Atlantic Avenue?? And Pacific Street? And Flatbush Avenue? And Fifth Avenue. And Sixth Avenue . . .

Posted by: uglyjohnny at March 31, 2009 1:18 PM

Williamsburg has tons of "i once was a building that housed 3-6 units and now i am an empty lot or a half dug hole or an empty luxury prison. Huge swaths of the entire Northside of williamsburg are trashed with what we in the neighborhood are calling "the Bloomberg blight". [N10, N9, N8, N7, N6, Metropolitan...) Lots of stuff just sitting on the Southside too...[S3, S4 between Hooper & Hewes. I suppose this is what happens when 80% of the buildings are constructed for 20% of the population.....

Posted by: rtg at March 31, 2009 1:34 PM

Obama will save us, won't he?

Posted by: Xander Crews at March 31, 2009 2:03 PM

Not just big developments. Lots of flippers got in over their heads, didn't have enough financing to begin with, couldn't do it right even during the go-go days, got stuck with SWOs and fines, and now can't finish or sell. Back during the run-up, these guys could always flip to their buddies or get more investors, but now the equity isn't there to cover the costs of their mistakes. The flippers and developers who did not bite off more than they could chew and did everything right the first time may have spent a little more than these other clowns budgeted, but they didn't get stuck. We've got a crappy little site like this on our block. The owner overpaid based on the zassumption he could overbuild, screwed up the demo because he failed to inspect for asebstos first, and kept getting SWOs and other fines. In short, he screwed himself by trying to take illegal shortcuts. They didn't even finish the demo enough to go the seed bomb/community garden route.

Posted by: slopefarm at March 31, 2009 4:04 PM

Down goes Brooklyn!!! Down goes Brooklyn!!!

***Bid half off peak comps***

Posted by: Brownstones Half Off at March 31, 2009 5:02 PM

Second St and Smith St (Carroll St subway plaza).

Smith St around Douglas (I think) demoed with ply fence and nothing happening for years.

Posted by: jfss at March 31, 2009 8:04 PM

The lot pictured above is on Prospect Avenue near Greenwood Avenue. They have been working on the foundation recently, so I don't think this particular project is on hold.

Posted by: pwhite at April 1, 2009 3:57 PM

Post a comment

Please be patient while your comment is published. It may take a moment.

Latest Restaurant Additions