Buying and Selling in the Shadow of the Yards
Facing a decade of construction outside their front door, nine residents of the Newswalk building on Pacific Street in Prospect Heights have cut and run in the past year. Ratner is literally going to build right outside what was my window, Jacob Septimus (who sold his three-bedroom for 2 1/2 times what he’d paid) says….
Facing a decade of construction outside their front door, nine residents of the Newswalk building on Pacific Street in Prospect Heights have cut and run in the past year. Ratner is literally going to build right outside what was my window, Jacob Septimus (who sold his three-bedroom for 2 1/2 times what he’d paid) says. He is basically going to block the light of all of our sunsets. We didn’t want to live with that. We didn’t want to live with that construction.
How bad could it really be? Matthew Schuerman paints a pretty ugly picture in this week’s Observer:
As the arena, the train yard and five other commercial and residential buildings get underway late next year, as many as 470 trucks will make deliveries each day during the peak period, in winter 2009, according to the final environmental-impact statement issued in November. An average of once or twice a week, workers would be on the job until 11 p.m. For 10 months, one of the lanes of Atlantic Avenue would shut down. Side streets would close for longer periods, some of them forever. The levels of fine particulate matter—soot and dust—would exceed the threshold level that the Environmental Protection Agency considers dangerous to human health along two different stretches around the construction site (including down the street from Newswalk) for year-long periods.
Not everyone’s afraid of a little dust and noise, though. Halstead reports having recently sold four family-sized apartments on Pacific Street for around $800 a foot.
Earplugs, Anyone? Selling in Atlantic Yards’ Shadow [NY Observer]
Photo by f.trainer.
I just purchased a unit in the Newswalk (have not moved in yet). As a real estate broker who has lived 9 plus years in Northern Battery Park/Tribeca, I’ve endured more construction than most of you; All nine plus years. Property values in my area have skyrocketed as a result. Yes, the noise can be annoying in the wee hours but for those who have lived in the area for many years their investment have tripled.
Smart investors know that you buy before a neighborhood develops and endure the growing pains. I am quite sure when the project is completed and all the manhattanites who cannot afford to pay 3MM plus in the city moves into the neighborhood looking for a deal, the newswalk will be the best deal around. None of the new project will have the same square footage. Manhattanites dream of space since space is at a minimum in the city. The Newswalk will be luxury to them.
How much of a view do you have in a brownstone, you’re usually looking directly at the back of someone’s brownstone or a building. Yes you have a garden and you could build a roof deck. So let’s be real. I had a full Hudson River view from my apartment for all but one year and rent or prices did not decrease. Now my apartment faces the Goldman Sachs building. Thats change, thats life. Now the prices will be 4x, more bankers in the neighborhood.
HOLD HOLD ( Buffet’s motto). Besides native New Yorkers are use to noise and those who require tranquility move to the burbs.
Any truth to all of the leaking problems at NewsWalk?????
that quote by Jacob Septimus was a joke. he lived on the third floor! if a townhouse was built outside his window , he’d lose his sunlight! what a misinforming article. asshole writer.
I’ve just heard that pigs fly. No wait, that’s just our borough prez.
anon 5:41 PM, that’s pretty cruel. Why raise our hopes, over-flowing joy and delirium like that unnecessarily? I’m sure that the next thing you’ll tell us is that you’re just kidding.
i just heard that ratner is backing out of the AY deal!
hey anon 2:05:
thanks Laurence Tribe.
dude, you’re clueless.
“Other large-scale bldg. developments have taken or currently taking place in this city’ – Yes, but please remember this will be the densest housing development in the Unites States – so please forgive us if we are a little concerned. It is also being brought to a low rise neighborhood – not like buildng another skyscraper on 6’th Avenue.
Has anyone logged on to dddb’s web site and read the legal documents. After doing so, I feel more confident than ever that AY opponents’ lawsuits will fail. Their complaint reads much like their web sites: rambling, paranoid, and hysterical.