Sales Begin at The Steelworks Loft
The Steelworks Loft, at 76 North 4th Street in Williamsburg, released five units for sale last week, ranging from a $575,000 studio to an $895,000 one-bedroom. It’s a 1930s industrial building (well, that much you know from the name), with 88 units. Big bonus seems to be the roof, where they’ve got an open fire…
The Steelworks Loft, at 76 North 4th Street in Williamsburg, released five units for sale last week, ranging from a $575,000 studio to an $895,000 one-bedroom. It’s a 1930s industrial building (well, that much you know from the name), with 88 units. Big bonus seems to be the roof, where they’ve got an open fire pit and a movie screen. Rough time to be releasing units; how do you think they’ll do?
Steelwork Lofts Coming Down the Pipe [Brownstoner]
Wine lover is generally right – in addition to there being a lot of families looking for decent sized housing in the area, its going to be harder and harder for singles to swing the down payment at these prices (six months ago, the Times and others noted the lack of qualifying applicants in this demographic – can’t imagine that its gotten better).
And Sam, Radiac is still open (about 6 blocks away from here). Unfortunately, if there is an accident there (which probably would not be nuclear in nature – they only handle low level stuff, and the other stuff they handle is actually much scarier), much of lower Manhattan would be uninhabitable as well (not to mention Clinton Hill and Ft. Greene and everything else in the path of the prevailing winds). The oil spill, on the other hand, is a few miles away, and is not seeping into “voids all over the area” (partially because its really far away and partially because the geology of this area doesn’t allow for a lot of voids). You can look up a map of the Mobil oil spill.
wine lover
I think you may be misinformed on two important counts. While many r.e. professionals say things like “only the price per square foot is relevant” most people do not buy property that way. besides, square foot measurements are notoriously mendacious in NYC.
secondly, williamsburg and greenpoint as rather infamous for toxic waste. evidently, one of the largest oil spills in history occurred there and the oil is still trapped in underground voids all over the area. The radioactive waste operation was open for business until very recently. It may be nothing, but I worry.
dora chica – how many sq. feet is the studio? i can’t get on to the website. that’s all that’s relevant – the psf pricing.
very little in that area is below $650 psf. obviously who knows where the market will land after the recent events.
sam – what are the health stats surrounding that area? is it any worse than anywhere else? i had read in the past that the data on actual cancer rates showed williamsburg and greenpoint to be some of the lowest in brooklyn. hearing that whole foods cannot build because of the delays caused by the toxicity of the gowanus area – is the gowanus area worse?
Can we talk about the firepit? On the roof? Is that even legal?
I’m squeamish about this part of williamsburg. so much toxic waste. Wasn’t the infamous Radiac Corporation nearby on Kent Avenue? I mean that operation handled uranium and plutonium radoactive waste -with a state license!
Dunno, this is too much money to spend to have to worry about toxic stuff leeching up from the wine cellar.
Townhouse Lady,
Of course they are there to make a profit but a studio at 575,00 is at the low end of the prices. and the avergae unit is price cost was 250,000. the lowest studio price is more than double the average cost price which means taht the average price is actually probably three or more times the cost. Which sorry makes it way way way way way way way way way way overpriced. No matter how you try to spin it it is overpriced.
There are tons of assumptions about williamsburg buyers stated here that are just off. One is that the wall street guys have been buying here. they aren’t. Also, it’s not the under 35 or hipster set that buys everything either. In fact, I doubt that hipsters buy much of anything.
From all anecdotal evidence, i think that the swing to smaller apartments is a mistake. Big apartments are selling well. Think that in Williamsburg (like elsewhere) that families are the big buyers and many are mid 30’s or older. In fact, many of the owners in my condo building are over 40.
100 N. 3rd sold out and people already moved in (have friends that bought there). Appears that they were successful because they offered several family sized apartments. My friends (who are over 35 and have a kid) said that every one of their neighbors who they’ve met have children.
The neighborhood is viable and has a great long term outlook regardless of this economy simply because of it’s proximity to Manhattan. Obviously, the neighborhood (especially prime – mid/north + west of the BQE) is also built up with tons of amenities. Also, and this is very important to a lot of people, there are no ghetto areas, no projects, and is gentrifying at a staggering rate (in the prime areas). It’s the far south and east that have the issues. Prime Williamsburg is simply not going to go backwards at this point.
Another plus is that many of the new condo projects are zoned for the grade school PS17 which is highly rated.
What is the doormen’s desk made of? Scrap metal? I think it is a nice look for an advertising agency or a gallery, but for home sweet home? How many hipsters have the scratch to pay for this faux-industrial luxury?
We have come a long way from when “loft” meant large cheap space in Manhattan. Now it means small expensive space in Brooklyn. No wonder everything is imploding.
I’d take the penthouse…just to have level floors! No, but seriously, the artist renderings look great. What will this look like in reality? And, I agree, the look will seem dated…at least the bathrooms. They should have gone “green” and really pulled out all the stops. Would have been doable with a building like this…especially since there are no landmarking issues.
Ultimately, they’re going to have to lower their asking prices to get interest going.