Tough Times at One Brooklyn Bridge Park
Sure, Elizabeth Stribling purchased a $6.05 million condo at One Brooklyn Bridge Park in March, but that didn’t make her a trendsetter. Bloomberg News reports that two-thirds of the 449 units remain unsold. The reason: Wall Street’s meltdown; OBBP’s main customers worked at places like Lehman and Merrill Lynch. “We were killed,” Robert Levine told…
Sure, Elizabeth Stribling purchased a $6.05 million condo at One Brooklyn Bridge Park in March, but that didn’t make her a trendsetter. Bloomberg News reports that two-thirds of the 449 units remain unsold. The reason: Wall Street’s meltdown; OBBP’s main customers worked at places like Lehman and Merrill Lynch. “We were killed,” Robert Levine told them. “We have negotiated and done some contracts, but people are clearly much more aware of the current economy.” Levine gets some of his development cash from a $300 million fund of American International Group Inc.’s real-estate investment sector. Oops. And here’s another problem: “One Brooklyn faces a particular challenge because it’s cleaved from the rest of Brooklyn Heights by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, said Cliff Finn, director of new development marketing for the New York real-estate brokerage Citi Habitats. In addition, since the Brooklyn Bridge Park itself won’t be finished for a few years, current buyers need to have some vision.
One Brooklyn Bridge Condo Demand `Killed’ as NYC Market Slides [Bloomberg]
Here’s what they have to do: approach Packer (or similar) to put in a 100-seat+ preschool in the ground floor. Free rent for 10 years. Free build out. Views. Park (someday).
Next thing you know you have 100 strollers making there way up/down there 4x a day (AM session, PM session). This the kind of crowd you need to attract. This is the way the neighborhood grows to embrace Furman St.
The walk from here to the subway is no further than from Willow Place, or Columbia Place, or Grace Court. It is a shorter walk to Boro Hall than if you live in the north Heights (Middagh, Cranberry, Poplar). It is ten minutes to boro hall, if you walk slow. The Witnesses used to walk back and forth twice a day for meals at the Bossert. It is a five minute stroll to Montague Street. And a ten minute drive to the Battery Tunel, the Brooklyn Bridge and Fairway. The building should have private docks for residents to keep their private sailboats or yachs. It should also build a covered “porte cochere” for taxi drop-offs, I agree they need to build up the luxe, but the location is not one of their problems, and the views are unsurpassed.
alsawo, I’m getting deja vu. Where’s Robert Moses, Jr. to tell us that the OBB location is like Willow Street with respect to the noise and pollution? I’ve said all along this has great views and bad location. Seems like the buyers, or rather non-buyers, agree.
@Sam:
Seriously? In DUMBO you are two blocks from both the F and A/C trains. What’s the walk from 1BBP? 15 minutes?
Can’t argue with about the noise, though.
Sam, you’re right, it’s a few blocks from nice homes on Joralemon, but when OBBP residents step out their door that’s not what they’ll see. They’ll be in an abandoned industrial neighborhorhood with no shops, no residences, used needles on the ground (I see at least one every time I run down there), etc. So yes, it’s a 5 or 10 minute walk away from the promenade and Montague Street, but if I were paying that kind of money I’d expect more in terms of location.
I don’t see why this is any less convenient or noisy than DUMBO. And it is literally just across the street from the rowhouses on Joralemon Street. How is that so distant and unreachable? The problem is the Park, which has yet to materialize and heavens knows when it will reach here. The great thing about this building is that it has parking so I would guess this appeals to folks who drive, or are driven, to work. It is ideally situated for that. Not everyone takes the bus or subway to work, Ms. Stribling certainly doesn’t. Having said this, I do think the prices are high for a half-finished vision. I would live here in a minute if the price were right. It would be like living in the city but set apart from it too, and it isn’t Williamsburg!
All the PSers worried about crime could move here. No people = no crime.
cb3, a pedestrian crossing is unnecessary. You can walk under the bridge and over to Brooklyn Heights. The real issue is that it’s quite far from anywhere in Brooklyn Heights you’d want to go.
I also noticed the other day a “One Brooklyn Brige Park” shuttle around the neighborhood. That’s a step in the right direction, I guess.
Cliff Finn, director of new development marketing … since the Brooklyn Bridge Park itself won’t be finished for a few years, current buyers need to have some vision.
I never understood the “pay us $1,000/sf for the vision” thing.
How do you expect to sell these things if you price them as if the park and BQE construction were both finished and the marina is rockin’?!?!?!
Hey Cliff, give me a call in 2012.