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A group of seven 19th century buildings on Atlantic Avenue close to the water, including the home of the last of the longshoreman’s bars, Montero’s, is for sale for $56,000,000. However, despite a wave of development on this gritty stretch by the BQE on-ramp, the chances of the row being razed and turned into condos — or even selling at all, at this price — are slim, because they are all landmarked.

Just across the street is the former Long Island College Hospital campus, where two 40-story condo towers are brewing, and a block away near the water Brooklyn Bridge Park is preparing for two more towers on Pier 6.

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The owner of the building at 73 Atlantic Avenue and its storied bar Montero’s, Pepe Montero, was convinced by other longtime owners on the block to sell — for the right price. He and six others, including one of his brothers, have signed a document promising to sell if an offer of $56,000,000 or higher comes in, as a story in The New York Times details.

The story notes the buildings (at 53-73 Atlantic Avenue) could be worth more together than separately, but typically that is only the case when a developer is able to raze a group and replace them with a much bigger building.

That can’t happen here, because all seven buildings were landmarked as part of the Brooklyn Heights Historic District in 1965, as this LPC map shows. Three of the seven properties have unused FAR, so additions would be possible — with LPC approval.

A photo posted by @marygarito on Jul 20, 2015 at 8:54pm PDT

A bit of background on the bar: It already moved once, in 1947, when Robert Moses bulldozed its original location to make way for the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and its on-ramp — which arguably continues to blight this stretch of Atlantic to this day.

It’s decorated in memorabilia, much of it from sailors passing through, and has two phone booths. A recent addition, relatively speaking, is the karaoke machine.

The bar has hosted a number of meetups of Brownstoner readers, including a memorable farewell party for longtime Brooklynite and Brownstoner columnist Montrose Morris and Brownstoner commenter Bxgrl when they moved to Troy in 2012. The founder of Brick Real Estate, Avi Adiv, put together the offer.

But if the group of buildings does sell, perhaps Pepe can have his cake and eat it too.

“If we did ever sell,” he told the Times, “I could put the whole bar in a container and just move it. Wherever we go, the bar is still well known.”

It moved once. Why not again?

Update: This post has been updated. Thanks to Brownstoner commenter Boerumresident for pointing out the properties are landmarked.

The New York Times has made a mini-industry out of writing about Montero’s. Further reading on its history, in the Times and elsewhere:
Tempting Offer Could Mean End of a Brooklyn Longshoreman’s Bar [NY Times]
The Quarrel [NY Times] The Fleet’s In: In the Harbor, and the Bar [NY Times]
Brooklyn Bar Has a Piece of Its Past Stolen [NY Times]
Montero Bar & Grill [Vanishing NY]
Owner of Montero’s Bar Dies [Lost City]

Un bar realmente familiar #karaokenight A photo posted by GabbiSanReq ? (@gabbirucha) on May 14, 2015 at 6:36pm PDT

One Night in Brooklyn… With @wadecarr @alysoncarr and @rogersmaura (the photographer)

A photo posted by Max Carr (@maxacarr) on Jul 2, 2015 at 7:43pm PDT


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. Never gonna happen. Never, ever, ever. Whoever Adi Adiv is, he wasted a lot of people’s time as this block is part of the LPC Brooklyn Heights Historic District AND part of the Limited Height Zoning District which caps building height at 50′. So lets pretend there’s a developer out there who is willing to gut the interiors of these buildings, thread some corridors & egress through them, & get LPC approval for a one story addition on top, which zoning will limit to 7,300 SF, they are going to be purchasing the property for $1,400 / SF in a neighborhood that sells condos for $1,600 / SF. Ludicrous. These buildings will stay as-is for a very long time.

    • I read the NYT report yesterday and had the exact same thoughts, but you beat me to the punch posting here. Everyone involved in the article — the reporter, the broker and the owners — is cracked if they don’t know about the landmarking and even more importantly the height restriction. As someone mentioned above, these could be nicely rehabbed, but no condo tower will ever appear here.

      Ever more crazy, is even if you could justify the purchase price, no way any developed condos are going to sell at the going neighborhood rate…this block is basically an on-ramp for the BQE (just look at the cross-street listed in DOB).

      Though, perhaps the broker is trying the pull the wool over someone’s eyes. Unbelievably, someone bought the old police station building on Poplar Street in the Heights at auction several years back for a nice chunk of change…they had big plans to convert into medium-rise condos. Oops, they had no idea it was landmarked, and ended up dumping the property a year later at a loss. The current developer picked it up and did his own conversion, but within the constraints of landmarking and height restrictions.

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