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Safety Improvements Approved for 4th Avenue
Brooklyn’s 4th Avenue has long been a dangerous proposition for pedestrians: Seven were killed between 2006 and 2011 with many others left to contemplate the likelihood of a similar fate while stranded on some of the narrowest medians in town. )nd just last month, three school children were injured by a turning driver at 44th Street.) DOT’s been working for the last three years on a plan to address the concerns and on Wednesday night Community Board 7 voted overwhelmingly to green-light the re-engineering project, the first phase of which would stretch from 15th Street to 65th Street. StreetsBlog has a good summary of the changes:
Under the plan, the narrowest medians would at least triple in width, and wider ones would expand too. The pedestrian space will be reclaimed by converting 17-foot wide combined parking and travel lanes on each side of the street into 13-foot wide parking lanes, though three travel lanes will be maintained northbound during the morning rush, from 38th Street to 17th Street. The changes would be implemented with low-cost materials — epoxy, gravel, planters, flexible posts — and DOT can complete them by this fall.
If you want more nitty-gritty, check out DOT’s slideshow [PDF] on the link.
CB 7 Approves 50-Block Ped Safety Project for Fourth Ave [StreetsBlog]
05/18/2012 11:03 AM
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Sunset Park’s Hotel BPM Will Soon Open its Doors
Hotel BPM, the tricked-out lodging house on 33rd Street in Sunset Park, will begin accepting guests on August 1st. At the moment, the hotel is offering a special rate for advance bookings via its website. A quote from a press release: “‘The website offers a sophisticated, user-friendly approach to learning about our hotel and planning for an upcoming trip to the world’s greatest city,’ says Hotel BPM Founder and Visionary, DJ BIJAL. ‘We are thrilled to launch the site along with the opening of our online booking engine, and can’t wait to welcome guests to BPM in August.’”
Touring Sunset Park’s Soon-to-Open DJ Hotel [Brownstoner]
Sunset Park DJ Hotel Scheduled to Open in January [Brownstoner]
Hotel BPM Opening Still TBD [Brownstoner] GMAP
Will Noise From a DJ’s Hotel Annoy Sunset Park? [Brownstoner]
A DJ-Driven Boutique Hotel for Sunset Park [Brownstoner]
Progress on Sunset Park’s Hip-Hop Hotel [Brownstoner]
05/16/2012 10:30 AM
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Sunset Park’s 4th Avenue Gets a “Road Diet” This Fall
Streetsblog reported the very welcome news that a dangerous stretch of 4th Avenue through Sunset Park should get a makeover as soon as this fall. Currently the two-and-a-half mile stretch consists of six lanes of moving traffic and left-turn bays. The DOT proposed, in Streetsblog’s words: “Recommendations [to] essentially slim the street down from six lanes to four lanes and add pedestrian space in the median using low-cost materials like paint, epoxy, and gravel.” 17-foot wide combined parking-and-traffic lanes will be reduced to 13-feet. Extra space in the parking lane increases safety for bicyclists, as well. Expanded medians, left turn restrictions, and a slimmer right-of-way for traffic shorten crossing distances for pedestrians and control the speeding problem down 4th. All the details are outlined on the DOT presentation [PDF]. The DOT is also looking into a few spots for dedicated pedestrian space extended through the entire intersection, but those sites have not been decided yet. And from 7 to 10am – morning commute hours – the northbound side of the street will retain three traffic lanes from 38th Street to 17th Street, after which the curb lane will revert back to parking. The majority of Community Board Seven members expressed their support. DOT should begin construction in August or September and be done by the fall. DOT outreach for safety measures on 4th Avenue through Bay Ridge are expected this fall and winter, while Park Slope outreach should come the winter or spring of 2013.
Deadly Fourth Avenue in Sunset Park Poised to Get Life-Saving Road Diet [Streetsblog]
05/03/2012 2:40 PM
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Broker Envisions a Music District for Industry City
It’s been reported that Sunset Park’s Industry City, which has 6 million square feet of warehouse space geared toward creative tenants, has had a hard time finding tenants. (Not surprising, perhaps, give how huge the complex is.) But Crosstown Realty broker Jon Brooks thinks the warehouse space may have potential as a future music district, and he has started marketing it as such. The manager of Industry City gave Brooks around 60,000 square feet to play with and agreed to fund at least half of the build-out once space was leased to a music business. So far Brooks is in the leasing stage for 10,000 square feet of space and is in talks with another tenant interested in rehearsal space. In his words: “Musicians will have access to cheap rehearsal, recording, production space. Also the idea is to have music equipments shops, music event businesses, in the building as well.” The idea is that the increased foot traffic will also bring in ground-floor commercial space.
Industry City Has Trouble Luring Tenants [Brownstoner]
04/25/2012 10:30 AM
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Commercial Klutch: Tenants Face Atypical Space Crunch
Our masked and anonymous soldier in the Brooklyn commercial real estate trenches files this month’s report on what he/she is seeing in the field. The latest column is particularly timely given yesterday’s Crain’s article about Dumbo’s continued status as a “tech hotbed.”
Is the unthinkable happening? Are tenants moving to or returning to the small island across the east river, leaving our big island behind, as commercial space in Dumbo becomes nearly impossible to find?
Tenants seeking space from 500 to 1500 RSF are the bulk of the booming demand around here. Most can’t find decent space this spring. The main “supplier,” Two Trees in Dumbo, is supply short and using most ‘smalls’ for their own internal demand. Even Court Street, historically slow moving, saw 32 Court lease three 900 RSF spaces within a few weeks this year.
Reflecting the rapid decline retail and apartment inventory, commercial offices had been plentiful until last year’s steady draw down. While there is usually something out there, and owners building out new footage as fast as they can, at any given moment the game of musical chairs finds tenants competing for limited seating, festival style. Gowanus, Fourth Avenue and even Sunset are bubbling, with few options even in these edge markets.
One wrinkle – generally creatives decline DTB space.They prefer to herd. That may slowly change as other options sell-out and DTB evolves further.
The new 1000 Dean Street should help out in 2013, drawing from new businesses in Prospect Heights, Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, Park Slope and beyond, as well as relieving some pressure on Dumbo.
Vinegar Hill, a block from the Manhattan Bridge overpass, has the newly restored 231 Front Street, with a dozen tiny spaces and more smalls coming on line this summer.
Office rents in the great Willie-B approach $40 a foot, when they can be found. Not for the faint of ‘cart’ – $$ that is. The top Gowanus multi-story buildings can get $20 a foot if they ask – where Dumbo was at several years ago.
Previous editions of Commercial Klutch can be read here.
04/23/2012 12:00 PM
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Gigantic Rooftop Farm Announced for Sunset Park
Yesterday afternoon Borough President Marty Markowitz, Mario Batali, and the CEO of Brightfarms, Paul Lightfoot, held a press conference announcing the world’s largest rooftop farm coming to the city-owned Liberty View Industrial Plaza building on Third Avenue in Sunset Park. Brightfarms will open the eight-story, 100,000-square-foot commercial greenhouse in early 2013. “Brooklyn deserves a better tomato,” Lightfood told the crowd, after stressing what an important food destination the borough has become. Yesterday the Post published more details about the garden, saying “the soil-free, hydroponic farm will operate eight stories high — overlooking the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway — and grow a whopping 1 million pounds of organic produce annually.” It will supply city restaurants, and Brightfarms is also looking for a grocery store partner. Click through for a rendering of the rooftop garden, via the Post. Also click through to see a picture of Marty Markowitz wearing Crocs, in an act of solidarity with Mario Batali.
Maize the Roof [NY Post] (more…)
04/06/2012 9:30 AM
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Touring Sunset Park’s Soon-to-Open DJ Hotel
This week we toured Hotel BPM (stands for “beats per minute”), the under-construction hotel opening in Sunset Park on May 14th. Music is the running theme here, with a built-in sound system in the hotel’s common areas and speakers in every guest room, including the bathrooms. Owner DJ Bijal designed Hotel BPM with the intent to open an upscale hotel in the neighborhood as an alternative to hotels in Downtown Brooklyn. The project has been in the making for about three years. There will be 76 guest rooms, most around the size of the room pictured. There’s a common bar area where breakfast will be served (eventually Bijal plans to apply for a liquor license and serve booze there), a conference room, and a nice-sized roof, which may someday become a rooftop lounge. Prices for rooms will roughly be $200/night, with a $139/night deal for the first few weeks after opening day.
Sunset Park DJ Hotel Scheduled to Open in January [Brownstoner]
Hotel BPM Opening Still TBD [Brownstoner] GMAP
Will Noise From a DJ’s Hotel Annoy Sunset Park? [Brownstoner]
A DJ-Driven Boutique Hotel for Sunset Park [Brownstoner]
Progress on Sunset Park’s Hip-Hop Hotel [Brownstoner]
03/30/2012 10:00 AM
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Rental of the Day: 357 44th Street
Here’s an interesting rental unit in Sunset Park, a one-bedroom cottage house at 357 44th Street. The interior boasts fairly standard finishes, but we think the real appeal of this apartment is the large front garden. From the pictures it needs some upkeep but with a bit of work it could be a really charming place to live. The rent is $1,500/month. What say you?
357 44th Street [Century 21] GMAP P*Shark
03/21/2012 12:30 PM
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Gentrification Battles Among Parents at Public Schools
This weekend the Times ran a story focusing on the tensions that are evident at several public schools between the newer—and often wealthier parents—and the old-guard parents who sent their kids to the schools before the neighborhoods they’re in became trendier and more expensive. The schools mentioned in Brooklyn include P.S. 295, where there was a PTA skirmish over whether to raise prices on cupcakes at a monthly bake sale from 50 cents to $1; P.S. 11 in Clinton Hill, where there were arguments over how classy an affair the school’s annual auction should be; and at P.S. 261 in Boerum Hill, where some parents “are trying to emulate professional fund-raising outfits, by quietly reaching out to the splattering of bankers and small business owners for large donations, while largely bypassing those who have less. This, of course, has managed to offend people on both sides.” The stats in the article about how the growing wealth in the neighborhoods these schools are in are illuminating: For example, at P.S. 295, the median household income shot up to $60,184 in 2010 from $34,878 10 years earlier. At P.S. 11, in Clinton Hill, 67 percent of students now qualify for a free or reduced-fee lunch, as opposed to the 86 percent that qualified in 2005. This was the section of the article that really stood out:
Such fracases are increasingly common at schools like P.S. 295, where changing demographics can cause culture clashes. PTA leaders are often caught between trying to get as much as possible from parents of means without alienating lower-income families. Sometimes, the battles are over who should lead the PTA itself: many of the gentrifiers bring professional skills and different ideas of how to get things done, while those who improved the school enough to attract them become guardians of its traditions. So along with cross-cultural exchanges, international festivals and smorgasbords, school diversity can mean raw feelings about race and class bubbling to the surface.
Have any readers with kids in local public schools witnessed this phenomenon firsthand?
At the PTA, Clashes Over Cupcakes and Culture [NY Times]
Photo by NYC School Help
03/19/2012 10:00 AM
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Closing Bell: Fashion Week(end) Coming to Industry City
At the end of this month Industry City, the industrial complex on the Sunset Park waterfront, is hosting Brooklyn Fashion Week{end}. The four-day event, which runs from March 29th through April 1st, will highlight fall and winter collections from local and international designers.
Brooklyn Fashion Week{end} [Official Site]
03/08/2012 4:00 PM
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Rental of the Day: 220 36th Street
Today we have a non-traditional pick for Rental of the Day, as this Sunset Park space at Industry City is strictly for commercial use. It’s a gorgeous-looking loft with high ceilings, lots of wall space, and a big window. It’s for rent at $1,000/month. We’re not too familiar with commercial rents in the area; anyone with more knowledge of the scene care to weigh in on its value?
220 36th Street [Aptsandlofts.com] GMAP P*Shark
03/01/2012 12:30 PM
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Jungle-Themed Club Opening in Sunset Park Today
Nearly a year ago we toured the 20,000-square-food jungle-themed nightclub coming to Sunset Park on 47th Street between 2nd and 3rd avenues, but Jaguars 3 is only now opening. As Grub Street reported, the restaurant portion opened February 22nd serving up modern Italian dishes. As for the nightclub making its debut tonight, it consists of three floors of animal displays, fake palm trees, waterfalls, and dance floors now open to the public. Check out a few more interior shots after the jump.
Sunset Park Getting Jungle-Themed Dance Club [Brownstoner] GMAP (more…)
03/01/2012 12:00 PM
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How a Section of the Bush Terminal Pier Park Looks Now
A Sunset Park resident sent us a link to a blog that recently ran a photo set showing the current state of the long-in-the-making Bush Terminal Pier Park is looking these days. As the caption for the photo above notes, it’s “already possible to get a sense of how lovely” the park will be. As we covered a couple weeks ago, the park will be built out on the waterfront between 43rd and 51st streets.
Sunset Park-Bush Terminal [Castles Made of Sand]
New Renderings for Bush Terminal Pier Park [Brownstoner]
Big-Money Clean-Up for Bush Terminal Piers [Brownstoner]
Sunset Park Waterfront Vision Plan Announced [Brownstoner]
ETAs on Some of Brooklyn’s Waterfront Projects [Brownstoner]
Photo via Castles Made of Sand
02/21/2012 12:00 PM
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New Renderings for Bush Terminal Pier Park
Remember the Bush Terminal Pier Park? Public space project was first announced in 2005, when the city, state and federal government teamed up on a $36 million rehab of the polluted former port between 43rd and 51st Streets in Sunset Park. Here’s a description from the EDC’s Sunset Park Vision Plan, which was announced in July 2009:
The conceptual design for the open space improvements includes the construction of two multi-use baseball and soccer fields, viewing areas for restored and remediated tidal pools, a naturalized preserve area, and future space for a mini-golf and batting cage concession. The design also includes administrative and operational space designed in collaboration with the Department of Parks & Recreation. In keeping with the City’s policy to encourage sustainable practices, several environmentally-conscious design elements are being considered, including on-site stormwater retention, wind turbines, solar power, the reuse of existing on- and off-site materials such as granite blocks from the existing street, and the use of shipping containers as building materials.
This weekend an excited Sunset Park resident sent in a photo from the top of 47th Street of the public space starting to take shape. It’s a little hard for us to distinguish what’s going on, but luckily the tipster also steered to a set of renderings from Adrian Smith Landscape Architecture that helps flesh out where this whole thing is headed.
Big-Money Clean-Up for Bush Terminal Piers [Brownstoner]
Sunset Park Waterfront Vision Plan Announced [Brownstoner]
ETAs on Some of Brooklyn’s Waterfront Projects [Brownstoner]
02/06/2012 10:30 AM
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Sunset Park DJ Hotel Scheduled to Open in January
A new press release about Hotel BPM, the property that a DJ is opening on 33rd Street between 3rd and 4th avenues, is splendid enough to warrant the copy-and-paste treatment: “This year, a new hotel is slated to ‘drop’ in Brooklyn. Hotel BPM, named for the music term referring to the pace count of a song, ‘beats per minute,’ is being launched in January 2012 by hip-hop deejay DJ Bijal. The boutique-style property will offer 76 guest rooms, environmentally-conscious amenities and a DJ Bijal-selected soundtrack streaming throughout its public areas. The new hotel brings the two worlds of music and hospitality together, right in the heart of Brooklyn.” The release also says that rates will start at $189 a night. As of earlier this week the lobby was still looking raw, but the construction fence around the building was starting to come down.
Hotel BPM Opening Still TBD [Brownstoner] GMAP
Will Noise From a DJ’s Hotel Annoy Sunset Park? [Brownstoner]
A DJ-Driven Boutique Hotel for Sunset Park [Brownstoner]
Progress on Sunset Park’s Hip-Hop Hotel [Brownstoner]
12/01/2011 2:40 PM
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Major Overhaul of Sunset Park Under Way
Last week there was an official groundbreaking ceremony for the $4 million renovation of Sunset Park that began early last month. According to a press release from Councilwoman Sara González, who secured capital funding for the project, the work will result a new synthetic turf field and the reconstruction of the park’s comfort station. Click through to see a schematic of the renovations. Construction is supposed to be ongoing through early 2013. (more…)
11/21/2011 11:00 AM
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City Council Approves Sale of Landmark Florist Building
According to an announcement sent out by the Historic Districts Council, the City Council has approved Green-Wood Cemetery’s purchase of the landmark McGovern-Weir Florist. A “public approval was necessary because of a state law involving cemetery usage,” according to HDC. Green-Wood hopes to close on the building soon. This summer the Times revealed Green-Wood wanted the building for a visitors’ center and museum, but the sale depended on the results of an engineering study. The late 19th century building is in a state of advanced deterioration. Excellent to hear it will be fixed up soon.
Landmark Greenwood Florist Building in Contract [Brownstoner]
Landmarked Florist Building Up For Sale [Brownstoner] GMAP
11/08/2011 10:00 AM
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House of the Day: 465 56th Street
This house at 465 56th Street in Sunset Park just hit the market with an asking price of $995,000, a number that frankly feels aggressive to us for the location. The house itself is pretty nice but not a show-stopper. The exterior is brownstone and has a lovely rounded front, so big points for that. The interior definitely has some original charm but the renovation that was done on the place screams “contractor/flipper” and hurts the overall feel of the place. Not that you couldn’t replace the generic new doors that litter the house with salvaged ones for a modest outlay but the characterless touches do mount up. Don’t get us wrong: This place is perfectly nice and will appeal to plenty of people but our sense of the market in Sunset Park is that it takes something pretty special to fetch $995,000 and this house doesn’t quite rise to that level.
465 56th Street [Brown Harris Stevens] GMAP P*Shark
11/03/2011 1:25 PM
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Market Snapshot: Sunset Park
PropertyShark hooked us up with a bunch of great data sets on Sunset Park’s real estate market since the beginning of 2005, and the numbers show that home sales in ’11 have been nothing to sneeze at. (On the other hand, bargain hunters might find the co-op and condo markets a bit weaker.) There have been a total of 2,120 residential sales in the neighborhood since the beginning of 2005, and the median sale price for both houses and apartments is $580,000. Breaking it down:
Condos and co-ops: Sales volume appears to be very slow so far this year, with 11 or fewer units selling in the neighborhood each quarter. Since 2005, there have been 20 or more sales most quarters. The median sale price since ’05 is $329,500, but the median price each quarter this year has also lagged well below that ($284K in Q1, $279K in Q2 and $292K in Q3).
Houses: By contrast, the market for houses in Sunset Park is strong this year. There have been around 40 sales every quarter this year, which is below most quarters in 2005, 2006 and 2007 but not off the cliff in the context of the last few years. What’s impressive, though, are the prices the houses are bringing in: The medians in the first and third quarter ($772K and $770K, respectively) are the highest of any quarter over the last six years.
Biggest sale ever: The most expensive sale ever in Sunset Park was for 761 56th Street, which traded for $1,730,000 in mid 2006.
Cheapest prop on the market: 728 41st Street #2C, a studio co-op listed for $124,900
Click through for some cool graphs showing price trends since ’05…. (more…)
10/19/2011 9:30 AM
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Another Legal Challenge to Sunset Park Rezoning
The community groups that recently lost their legal challenge against the 2009 rezoning of Sunset Park have filed an appeal, according to The Eagle. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) and South Brooklyn Legal Services say the 128-block rezoning has the potential to cause the displacement of Sunset Park’s low-income Asian and Latino communities, particularly on Third, Fourth and Seventh avenues, where the zoning was changed from residential to commercial. The groups charge the city didn’t properly conduct an environmental review as part of the rezoning. The Eagle quotes AALDEF staff attorney Bethany Li as saying the following: “Once you account for all the changes due to the rezoning, the amount of affordable housing and commercial space will significantly decrease. We hope the court will rule in favor of the Asian and Latino immigrants who want to preserve their Brooklyn neighborhood.”
Sunset Park Rezoning Case Heads to the High Court [Eagle]
Opponents of Sunset Park Rezoning Lose Legal Challenge [Brownstoner]
Photo by jacopast
10/17/2011 9:30 AM
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deancollins
May 21, 2012 | 02:16 PM