FOB Hosting W'burg Open House Saturday
Time for a little nepotism around here. An old Brownstoner pal is just putting his 2-story, mixed-use building in Williamsburg on the market. While a far cry from a brownstone, the property is located right in the middle of things at Grand and Lorimer. As the nicely designed by-owner website reveals, the ground floor commercial…
Time for a little nepotism around here. An old Brownstoner pal is just putting his 2-story, mixed-use building in Williamsburg on the market. While a far cry from a brownstone, the property is located right in the middle of things at Grand and Lorimer. As the nicely designed by-owner website reveals, the ground floor commercial space currently generates $2,920 a month in rent, the residental second floor brings in $2,360. There’s also a sizable two-car garage. The kicker, from where we stand, is the unused FAR. Because Grand Street is so wide, the buildings along it have an FAR of 3.4 which translates into 6,800 square feet for the 2,000-square-foot lot, 4,300 square feet more than the existing structure. We’re going to recuse ourselves from any discussion of the $859,000 asking price on the grounds of conflict of interest. Interested parties can check it out for themselves at the open house on Saturday from 3 to 5 pm.
Mixed Use for Sale [580grand.com] GMAP
Who built the website? The broker or the seller? If the broker did, I’d say he deserves his forthcoming commission more than most brokers. If the seller designed it, it’s the first time I’ve seen somebody build their own website AND use a broker. Why would somebody do that?
I don’t think, however, it’s legal to claim that extra FAR can be used. In many cases, extra FAR cannot be used. Smart brokers/sellers never promise FAR can be used because they know they can be sued in the future if they turn out to be wrong.
This guy’s putting it in writing (webpage), so he sure as hell better be right.
01:10 PM, you said that you’re in the mortgage business. Can you post your information so those of us who are interested in acquiring a mixed-use property with 80% financing can look you up? Would be greatly appreciated.
i’m not an engineer or structural expert, but I think the property from what I saw could support a couple of floors. the appeal of this property – per all recent posts – is that it has an extraordinarily high FAR, so the underlying land is more valuable..
Maybe I’m wrong, but in my limited experience its not rare for a building to have enough FAR to build another floor. (Is that less common for commercial buildings?) And that floor still costs money.
So I don’t think the FAR would be an unusually appealing selling point — unless you wanted to use ALL the FAR, and then you’re talking about a teardown, right?
But I’ve never bought commercial property, so I’m no expert.
saw the place last weekend. there is a phat basment also. don’t tear down the building – tear down the garage & make a sweet garden…FYI – very nice seller website (www.580grand.com) – brownstoner’s pal has too much time on his/her hands!
I went to the website and it says aptsandlofts.com is the broker. Does this mean I have to see the building with them on Saturday or can i call them to see it before?
pardon my ignorance, but would someone tell me what FAR stands for? how does one find out how much FAR a property has?
Not sure what you do with all of it but surely there’s another floor or two you can get out of it–enough to make the numbers start to look interesting, we’d think. Why, do you disagree that the FAR is what makes or breaks this one?
I have no prob with Bstoner doing a solid for his friend, with full disclosure. What I find funny is the selling point being all the unused FAR. Is there any practical way of building 4,300 sf onto the existing structure? If not, isn’t that kind of code for “Knock this sumbitch down and put up a big ol’ condo in its place?” And isn’t there a certain Brooklyn real estate blogger who usually tends to frown on that kind of thing?
Or maybe I’m totally wrong, but in that case, just what DO you do with all that FAR? (Sell the air rights for someone else’s big ol’ condo?)