House of the Day: 109 Gates Avenue
What was the current owner of 109 Gates Avenue thinking when he shelled out $2 million for the five-story brick house in Clinton Hill last winter? The stop-start renovation had been on going since a group of investors had bought the place for $1.1 million back in early ’05. We’d been hoping that the reno…
What was the current owner of 109 Gates Avenue thinking when he shelled out $2 million for the five-story brick house in Clinton Hill last winter? The stop-start renovation had been on going since a group of investors had bought the place for $1.1 million back in early ’05. We’d been hoping that the reno was taking so long because of a painstaking restoration effort. Not so. The result is a cheap-looking Home Depot special on the upper three floors (in addition to the two unfinished bottom floors that are for rent, presumably for commercial purposes), a decision the owner must be regretting as the house sits on the market for the ridiculous asking price of $2,800,000. Especially in this market, if you build cheap, you’re gonna have to sell cheap. Time to wake up and smell the coffee.
109 Gates Avenue [Brooklyn Properties] GMAP P*Shark
Mural, And Then a Restaurant, at 109 Gates Avenue [Brownstoner]
I used to own the building. It is a beauty. It is a shame to see that the jerk who purchased it from us totally screwed up the work and that he never completed the builiding as he described to us. He also stiffed the trades who were waiting for Landmark to finally get its act together.
Landmark kept us waiting for almost 2 years because we wanted to remove the side stairs which were not original to the building. In addition the bums in the neighborhood kept breaking in and stealing anything they could get their hands on.
I hope the new owner does it justice and by the way, can a building be sold with outstanding liens on it? Whoever said flip fraud was right. What a disgrace.
the mullioned windows that folks think are ugly are original to the building. They would make a better statement painted a color close to the brownstone.
Regarding the criss-cross windows–they actually duplicate the ones pre-fire. But they were painted brown and looked much better. I assumed at some point that these would be painted as well.
12:17 Go buy it then. Good luck, knucklehead.
Exactly 12:17–the math doesn’t add up if you’re shelling out $2.85 and using a mortgage. Ridiculous.
i think that they would rent out quickly too. how much could you get for it tho? $2500? are there 4, then that’s 10K plus whatever for the retail. don’t think that it would cover your mortgage and expenses. am i adding this up wrong?
I say break the fucking building down and put up a gosh damned hot dog stand.
That way, The What’s mother will never run out of wieners to suck.
I live on the block and walk by that house frequently. Every single one of the house’s windows is Marvin (I saw them installed, and the stickers were on for weeks last year). The criss-cross thing was required by landmarks. As a whole, I have to disagree with most of the comments here- I think the apartments are fine for rentals. Question is, what becomes of the ground floor space?
I don’t know if any of you remember but the place was almost gutted by fire. There was very little if any details to salvage. I knew the former owners and it was a real shame that the building was so badly burned. Although I have to agree the price is high and the renovation at least from what I can see in the pics is not the best it still is valuable for the commercial/retail space, the fact that its a corner property is also huge,you have lots of windows. I don’t know what it will eventually sell for but I think the property even in its present state is valuable.
Well, Landmarks has never been accused of having great taste. Their job is to make things look like they did back in the day. If it was ugly back in the day, the LPC is going to make sure it is ugly again. 🙂