According to a blissfully rosy story in The New York Post, the 85-acre Brooklyn Bridge Park is not only about a year from being 60% complete, but deserves credit for a residential real estate boom in both Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO.
First, the optimistic factoids regarding BBP’s 60% completion: The Post assures that “a sports facility with three soccer fields will open this fall at Pier 5,” followed by BBP President Regina Myer’s promise that next year, Pier 2 will be “fully developed,” with basketball, handball, exercise space, shuffleboard, bocce ball, a new lawn and in-line skating. She offers, “By the end of next year, we’ll be 60% finished with the park.”
Second, according to the story titled “Brooklyn Bridge Park is a boon to DUMBO and the Heights,” it says, “The surrounding real estate has gone along for the ride.” While a good portion of the story’s focus is on DUMBO, it credits BBP for a housing boom in “development-shy Brooklyn Heights.” Halstead broker Laura Amin—who is overseeing the final two sales at 24-unit 166 Montague Street—says, “We normally see a slowdown this time of year, but that certainly isn’t the case right now. We’re spring-like busy.”
And across the street at new 74-unit rental 75 Clinton Street, the NYP says “prices have reached levels you don’t expect to see in Brooklyn.” That project’s final available 3-bedroom (1,550sf with a 957sf terrace) leased for $11,000/month, according to Jackie Urgo, president of the Marketing Directors.
In addition, “the once-stalled, two-building 20 Henry Street should start closings in September, with 27 of its 39 condos spoken for and prices hovering around $1,050 per square foot,” while “there’s a spurt of new development,” including a former police station at 72 Poplar Street, which was bought by the Daten Group last year, with plans for a residential conversion… and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle site at 30 Henry Street has plans for a six-unit condo…. and in June, 172-174 Montague Street changed hands for $12 million. The Post also alludes to the 437-unit condo One Brooklyn Bridge Park, which it says is now 80% sold.
“I think what’s happening is that the last couple of years you didn’t see anything,” says Steve Rutter, EVP and managing director of Stribling Marketing, which is selling 20 Henry Street. “Now there’s a thirst to develop.”
“I felt a little ‘Green Acres,'” adds Chris Phoenix, CEO of the Phoenix Media Group, who lived in Brooklyn Heights proper for years before he and his wife bought at One Brooklyn Bridge Park. “My wife lived in [Chelsea’s] London Terrace, and here I was dragging her out to the farmlands of Brooklyn Heights. I didn’t hear a peep. I viewed it as a victory for Brooklyn.”
Meanwhile, in DUMBO, Jed Walentas of Two Trees, which has owned real estate in DUMBO since the 1980s, notes, “More employers in Downtown Brooklyn are going to figure out how to make [BBP] an amenity to office employees.”
The Toll Brothers/Starwood’s imminent 500,000-square-foot hotel/condo complex is another sign of “progress,” according to the Post. The “Pierhouse” 200-room hotel and 160-unit condo is slated for completion in 2015.
There’s more to read here.
