Development Watch: 170 North 5th Street
The facade for 170 North 5th Street in Williamsburg has been up for a while now. The 18-unit, 21,000-square-foot building, from RKT&B Architecture and Urban Design, has gone up along with a swath of new developments on North 5th. The facade seems to have been RKT&B’s ace-in-the-hole, since their original renderings looked like a large-scale…
The facade for 170 North 5th Street in Williamsburg has been up for a while now. The 18-unit, 21,000-square-foot building, from RKT&B Architecture and Urban Design, has gone up along with a swath of new developments on North 5th. The facade seems to have been RKT&B’s ace-in-the-hole, since their original renderings looked like a large-scale foam core model. It’s definitely a break from some of the more sterile steel-and-glass developments in the area (or the large green cylinder development), but what do you think, Brownstoners? Yea or nay? GMAP P*Shark DOB
It has a FLW quality too it! Not as nice or sophisticated but not as bad as other buildings that are going up!
Why can these buildings do more for the community I mean would it kill to plant some trees in the burg!
I’m not saying the market in williamsburg is strong. I agree that condo prices have outpaced certain family amenities like schools, though those are coming along (public and private). you’re wrong about the parks, of which there are more in williamsburg than any neighborhood not around prospect park. and no one can deny that it’s pretty ugly, especially the ironically most pleasant part in which to live by the graham stop. I think the price cuts need to happen to move the overpriced 1BR and 2BR units that all look the same.
but I live in williamsburg and have for 12+ years and walk around a ton. if you add up the total number of units in all the little developments that have been built or are being built, including everything that’s sold over the last few years, you might get 3500 units.
to suggest that the anecdotal evidence of, let’s say, dozens of these mostly smaller developments sitting fallow bolsters a claim of up to 10,000 units of inventory/shadow inventory is crazy. you don’t get to numbers like that without factoring in mega developments that aren’t going to happen. the number is almost certainly half that, and probably even less than that.
“but it would take hundreds of such buildings for those numbers to make sense”
Bingo!
Take a walk this weekend!
Let’s not fight about this…none of us have actual numbers to back up either of our assertions here unfortunately. You seem to be saying the Williamsburg real estate market is strong (along with Wine lover) and I’m saying I don’t think that is accurate.
Since I’m not buyin’, I don’t really care enough to keep talking about it but I am happy that people want to live in that hood will get some good bargains.
The neighborhood is MUCH more attractive to me (not for me to live in personally, but just in general) as one with lower priced property. It’s just too ugly and lacks a lot of things (trees, excellent schools, parkland) etc to be as expensive as it is now.
Leave the million dollar 2 bedroom apartments for 10 years down the road when the neighborhood becomes more developed.
most of the developments here are (way) under 30 units. certainly there are many that are sitting in different states of partial to full completion, some with money issues, some with sales issue. but it would take hundreds of such buildings for those numbers to make sense. you can count the number of mega developments in williamsburg on one hand–there are 2, NS Piers and the Edge. then there are a few more large ones, notably on lower Kent Ave.
I agree that it looks like it was dropped in from Seattle. But I like it as far as modern condo buildings go.
“all he does is tell tall tales.”
Funny coming from someone who professed yesterday that the Co-op of the day must have bed bugs by the look of the pictures.
Do you even hear yourself, Rob?
9300 in from UrbanDigs.com
And yes, the 10,000 are the units currently for sale, the units coming for sale in the next 12-18 months and the units being held back as developers are trying not to release all of their inventory on the market at once.
I know it’s crazy, but all you have to do is walk around the neighborhood.
Take a look at the thread on the new cinema on Metropolitan today on Brownstoner. Apparently they’ve run out of money and according to the commenter, the movie theater can’t even open till the condos are sold. So yet another building sitting there rotting. And that place actually looked pretty ok.
Everywhere you turn, there is building after building sitting empty…many of which don’t look great freshly built, so I don’t know how they plan to attract buyers after they’ve aged a couple years.
But they will sell…there are certain people who LIVE Williamsburg. They will just be selling at much lower prices than they are today. I’d hazard to say 50% off from peak.
There will be special properties like the old coverted warehouses that sell well and for large pricetags, but 80% of the stuff in Williamsburg is total crap.
And you’d call it crap if it were on 4th Avenue, but for some reason in Williamsburg that exact same crap is considered cool.
Wow. It’s um, wow.
Looks like it might have been dropped in from Seattle?
quote:
11217, you’re making a mess! Seriously, 10,000 condos coming to the market in Williamsburg? That is quite the tale.
all he does is tell tall tales. oh yeah the obligatory “i have a friend who blah blah blah” routine. :-/ and before your wig out 11217, what i just said IS on topic.
*rob*