374 Pacific Street Coming Up For Auction
The five-story brownstone at 374 Pacific Street, reputed to be Boerum Hill’s largest, has long been the victim of neglect by its owner, Bruce Marlow. According to a tipster, the government is finally doing something about it. The New York City Sheriff’s Office has scheduled an auction for the property on June 9 at 10:30…
The five-story brownstone at 374 Pacific Street, reputed to be Boerum Hill’s largest, has long been the victim of neglect by its owner, Bruce Marlow. According to a tipster, the government is finally doing something about it. The New York City Sheriff’s Office has scheduled an auction for the property on June 9 at 10:30 a.m. on the 9th floor of the Brooklyn Municipal Building. Many residents in the neighborhood are hoping that the shell of a building is bought by someone with the means and taste to restore the exterior to its former glory, so spread the word if you know any enlightened investment bankers. GMAP
Okay, DIBS, $334/sf for fuckin’ Normandy!
“This is a terrrrrable idea” – Charles Barkley
***Bid half off peak comps***
Sold today at auction for $1.335 million. I suspect it was bought by a developer, and will be turned into condos.
I believe Bruce may have gone off the deep end. Nobody seems to know where he is or if he’s in a hospital. He was in the record business years ago; a nice enough guy who became more reclusive as time went by. Even when he was living there the postman said mail would sometimes pile up behind his door slot. We happened to meet an old girlfriend of Bruce’s who said the house was once filled with antiques.
The last time we saw Bruce was a few years ago when he was in his back yard supervising the rebuilding of the back part of the house which had collapsed. A few years before that, he told me there were rooms he hadn’t been in for years. It’s sad and hopefully when some of us loose our minds, there will be family around to help.
Regardless of our dreams and speculation today, I truly hope someone rescues it – this building deserves it.
I would think that if we are anywhere close on our guesstimates, this could be a very profitable condo conversion. 349 Pacific was four floor though rentals, and the guy bought it for around 1.2Mish, kept the parlor and half the garden for himself, and netted around $2M for the sale of the other 3.
Man, this would be a great project for someone! I would def rather see this turned into a 4 or 5 unit condo than an obscene 6500 sq ft mansion.
I think 2-3M to fix this is too much.
So what’s the sq. ft. of this house? Is it 5,000 or 6,000.
I still say $200 sq. ft. for a bare bones renovation. Nothing fancy.
This is not a new construction. ie. you don’t need a foundation. There are perimeter walls. Albeit, what condition they’re in is another story.
Even if you figure $250 sq. ft, it’s 1.5M for 6,000 sq. ft.
I renovated a brick corner house (more windows) in similar condition a few years ago. 4-story, 3,200 sq. ft. + cellar and construction cost was 800K.
You’re probably looking at $350 per square foot to build ground-up including soft costs but not including the cost of the building/ lot. All-in, you’re probably at $400-450/sf, and assuming you can re-build this to its current square footage (~6,000sf), which may not happen, you’re looking at $2.4mm – $2.7mm in construction costs. The certificate of occupancy says it’s a 2-family, so assuming you didn’t change that, you’d have 2 duplex condos of approximately 2,250sf each. you’d have to sell them at $600/sf just to break-even and that’s not including taxes and selling costs.
Keep in mind that I’m purposely building-in some added problems that you may encounter, including environmental and structural problems, so there may be some room to work with in my numbers.
Also, just so you know, I work at a Queens-based development company which has done similar projects.
more4less –
A pretty good comp for this on the next block in terms of what is a vacant lot should sell for at 398 Pacific. That property is a 3 family with a vacant lot next door which was purchased for $2.5M in 2005. The multi-family is 22X50 (4400 sq ft) and the two lots are each 22×100. With NO IMPROVEMENTS they spent 16 months trying to flip it:
11/20/2008
Listed by Halstead Property at $2,175,000 (multi-family only).
02/06/2009
Price increased by 51% to $3,295,000 (house & lot).
03/19/2009
Price decreased by 9% to $2,995,000 (house & lot).
04/27/2009
Previously Listed by Halstead Property at $1,995,000 (house only).
11/30/2009
Delisted temporarily by Halstead Property. Last priced at $2,825,000.
So basically they were dreaming the empty lot is worth $1M. The market disagreed.
Another comp, albeit in Cobble Hill:
357, 359 and 361 Henry Street have been on the market forever. Started at $1.175M-1.25M in March 2009, down to $885K-$895K and falling at present. Property Shark lists this as 117X100…100 feet is often the lot depth, but I think 355 has a building on it, and the other 3 are vacant…so I’m thinking its 117 feet deep and 4 25 foot lots. This is the corner of Amity and Henry…haven’t walked that section in a long, long time. Anyone know the story?
That works out to $35K per front foot if those 3 lots are 25 wide each, or $23K per front foot if its three 39 foot lots (which doesn’t make sense). Either way, easy to see why 398 Pacific never fetched $45K per front foot.
IIRC there were a couple other vacant lots that sold in the north end of Cobble Hill in the last 5 years but I can’t remember the address.
BTW, I was wrong earlier – 5800 sq ft is the 10-unit bldg @ 347 Pacific which has been on/off the market for years, last priced $2.675M. 374 Pacific is 6473 sq ft on a 26×100 lot.
Anyway, I had dinner with a longtime block resident recently and we were guessing $650K – valuing the lot at $25K per front foot, and discounting any value of the shell because it would be more than offset by the gut removal costs and getting a roof on it and running temporary joists so folks could safely work inside.
This thing could def be the epitome of a money pit, but I would love to give it a go if I had the means.
is 26′ wide lot I think, and structure had over 6k sq ft.
So costing $1m at least to rebuild the place.
And getting 900k for it because of size of lot seems quite reasonable.
New building essentially (since really just shell salvagable) of 6K sq ft (twice the size of lots and lots of 2 family houses). So even if total project including purchase is $2.5m , not a bad proposition.
Not to be argumentative, ET, I appreciate the response…but $200 psf reno is for an intact building. I would think this one would take 2 to 3 million.
I don’t know what new construction from the ground up costs these days. On the Hoyt Street corner of this block, we had a crumbling building for much of the late 90s. Finally got torn down and sat vacant for several years. Then a builder came along and built a very nice spec house, a 20×47 4-story brick house which cost over $1M 2001-02. Took over a year to move it. $1.7 down to $1.6 cut to $1.5, sold for $1.43M, which in 2003 we thought was ridiculously high! lol
With 374 Pacific Street you will need virtually everything a new house would need – probably can’t salvage much besides the front three walls. Removal costs will pretty significant. All the front windows are sealed up with mortar or cement. Architect should be used, engineering costs will be pretty high…so thinking out loud…perhaps $3 million is the ballpark, minimum.
But I am totally guessing.