Brooklyn

Yes, a top floor apartment can often mean an annoying walk up the stairs to get there. And for this prewar building in Park Slope, at 523 8th Street, that's likely the case. This apartment is located on the top floor of the four-story, 11-unit building. But we'll venture to say this walk-up is worth it, considering how charming the space is. It's a two-bedroom rental with details like tin ceilings, carved entryways, and lovely views of the treetops below. It's also just a half block away from Prospect Park.
Check it out

January 19, 2016

Live/Work Loft Serviced by the Original Freight Elevator Asks $1.575 Million in Clinton Hill

We'll just come out and say it: this Clinton Hill loft is really cool. The 2,074-square-foot space, lined with big windows that face both north and south, takes up the entire third floor of the live-work cooperative at 93 Lexington Avenue. You'll still find the original industrial details of the former warehouse building throughout the apartment, including an incredible copper-doored elevator. Another freight elevator, also an original detail of the building, opens directly into the apartment. It last sold in 2012 for $880,000 (slightly over the ask of $855,000) and now it's on the market for much more, $1.575 million.
Tour the space

Distinctive Homes

January 18, 2016

Get More Bang for Your Buck With This $1.6M Kensington Townhouse

You might call Kensington an "under-the-radar" neighborhood of Brooklyn–it doesn't get a lot of press coverage, it isn't known for any of Brooklyn's famous brownstone architecture, and it only covers 107 square blocks a little further south in the borough. But it's still a lovely, family-friendly area with great townhouses and proximity to both Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery. This three-story townhouse at 277 East 9th Street has been totally and completely renovated by a "boutique developer" who, according to the listing, "spared no expense." The ask of $1.575 million obviously isn't cheap, but you're definitely getting more bang for your buck in a borough where townhouses that need major upgrading still go for up to $2 million. Here, at least, there are no renovations needed.
See the interior

Distinctive Homes

January 15, 2016

Behind a Boring Facade Are Cool, Lofty Apartments in Greenpoint

The four-story townhouse at 106 Dupont Street in Greenpoint is nothing to write home about. In fact, it's straight up boring, and it'd be fair to assume the interior was, too. But the building, which was gut renovated in 2006, actually holds some cool apartments inside. It was separated into three units: a super lofty, top-floor duplex with three bedrooms; a middle floor-through apartment with two bedrooms; and a first-floor, floor-through unit with two bedrooms and a private garden. The listing is marketing this as a good investment for "an end-user who wants to collect great rental income," as it's currently occupied by tenants. But they'll have to cough up a lot of cash first: the property is asking $3.78 million.
See the apartments

Distinctive Homes

January 13, 2016

POLL: Is Sleepy Sheepshead Bay Set to Undergo a Building Boom?

On Monday, 6sqft revealed renderings of a new tower in Sheepshead Bay, the once-sleepy waterfront community that’s almost as far out as Coney Island. Its 331-foot height may not be news in most of the city, but here the residential tower will be four times taller than almost anything else in the area. Not only does this […]

New Developments

January 13, 2016

Plenty of Period Splendor at This $5.5M Park Slope Brownstone

There are some New York properties in which it'll depress you that "we just don't make them like we used to." This is one of them. 226 Garfield Place is a single-family, four-story Park Slope brownstone built in 1901. It's located smack dab in the neighborhood's historic district and a few blocks from Prospect Park. The home withstood the test of time, then underwent a restoration and renovation in 2006 that returned many of the period details back to their original splendor. That means while you've got restored woodwork, mantlepieces and parquet floors, there are also fancy additions like dual zone central AC, new windows, plumbing and electrical and an upgraded roof. Best of both worlds!
See the interior

Distinctive Homes

January 12, 2016

Massive Williamsburg Studio, Asking $3,750 a Month, Is Called a ‘Loft Lover’s Dream’

Are you the type of New Yorker who dreams of great apartments after you've gone to bed? Maybe you've dreamt up a loft that looks like this, with wide open space, strikingly high ceilings, a private terrace and roof deck with views of the Williamsburg Bridge (Every NYC apartment worth dreaming about has outdoor space!). The listing, anyway, claims this Williamsburg studio at 138 Broadway is the stuff of dreams, and we have to say that it does look dreamy in the photos -- especially the 20-by-22-foot main space that's being used as the living and bedroom. The apartment comes from a well-known Williamsburg building, the Smith Gray, a cast-iron design built in 1882 for the Smith and Gray Department Store Building. It was converted to condos in 2002.
Check out the apartment

Distinctive Homes

January 12, 2016

Brooklyn’s Future Tallest Tower to Hit 1,066 Feet

Less than a month ago, developers Michael Stern and Joe Chetrit closed on Downtown Brooklyn's Dime Savings Bank building for $90 million, which provided them with the 300,000 square feet of air rights needed to construct Brooklyn's first 1,000+ foot tower at 340 Flatbush Avenue Extension. Since news of the future tallest building outside Manhattan first came to light in August, the exact height hadn't been reported. But now NY Yimby has uncovered the number, and it's a whopping 1,066 feet, amounting to 556,164 square feet of total space.
READ MORE

New Developments

January 11, 2016

Did Beyonce and Jay-Z Just Buy a Condo at Brooklyn Heights’ Pierhouse?

By Annie Doge

That's what a Brooklyn Bridge Park security guard is saying. The luxury condo building Pierhouse, which is located in the Brooklyn Heights park, has become notorious for the controversy surrounding its height, but now the conversation has turned to its potentially famous new residents, as the guard let the news slip to a long-time local who then spilled the beans to everyone at a community meeting.
Find out more

Celebrities

January 11, 2016

First Look at the 331-Foot Sheepshead Bay Tower Set to Dwarf Its Neighbors

In Manhattan, much of Brooklyn, and parts of Queens like Long Island City, a 300-foot tower isn't even news. But out in the once-sleepy waterfront community of Sheepshead Bay, it's sure to get people talking. Last September, it was revealed that a joint venture between Muss Development and AvalonBay would be building a 30-story residential tower at 1501 Voorhies Avenue that would be four times taller than almost anything else in the area. Now, here's our first look at the large and rather glassy behemoth designed by Perkins Eastman Architects. According to revised building plans, the tower is two stories shorter than initially filed and has a height of 331 feet, 6 inches to the top of its rooftop mechanical bulkhead.
More details and renderings

January 8, 2016

432 Park Avenue Records Its First Blockbuster Closing at $18.1M!

By Diane Pham

And so it begins! Closings at Macklowe Properties/CIM Group's Billionaires' Row blockbuster 432 Park Avenue have officially commenced with its first sale showing an impressive $18.116 million figure, as city records released this afternoon reveal. The unit is #35B, a massive 4,003-square-foot, three-bedroom pad with four-and-a-half baths, a private elevator landing, and 10-foot by 10-foot windows providing southern and western exposures with park views. Documents show that the palatial home was purchased via a LLC, 432 PARKVIEW.
more on the sale and the floor plan here

January 8, 2016

Developer Matthew Blesso Looks for a Profit on This Gorgeous Park Slope Townhouse

The historic Park Slope townhouse at 857 Carroll Street hasn't spent a long time off the market. In February of last year, the developer Matthew Blesso settled in after buying it for $4.05 million. (We called his move a "total architectural 180," considering his previous pad was this green Noho penthouse he sold for $7.35 million.) Now he's put the Brooklyn property back on the market for a higher price than he bought it for, $4.695 million, with some upgrades to boot.
Take a tour inside

January 8, 2016

Could These Twin Glassy Towers Be Coming to the Greenpoint Waterfront?

Momentum is building along the Williamsburg-Greenpoint waterfront. Since the Bloomberg administration's sweeping 2003 rezoning of the two-mile stretch of East River shoreline, nearly every buildable river-facing plot has been accounted for by developers. More than a dozen master plans are in the works, dominated by residential uses that scale upward to 50 stories and 600-foot heights. One remaining mystery lot is a block-long parcel in Greenpoint currently holding a two-story warehouse at 161-167 West Street (aka 53 Huron Street). The 65,000-square-foot site lies near the India Street ferry stop and is sandwiched between three development sites: Park Tower Group's ten-tower Greenpoint Landing master plan and Mack Real Estate Group/Palin Enterprises' 10 Huron Street (155 West Street), and The Gibraltar at 160 West Street.
More details ahead

January 6, 2016

$1.7B Light Rail Connecting the Brooklyn-Queens Waterfront Proposed

By Diane Pham

The dream of a Brooklyn-Queens light rail is moving further into the realm of reality. Back in July last year, 6sqft reported that an advisory committee comprised of developers, transportation experts and civic organizers was in the midst of forming to address the need for a more robust transportation system that could connect underserved, but booming, areas of Brooklyn and Queens. Now as the Daily News tells us, a non-profit advocacy group called Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector has officially materialized to tackle the issue, and they've just released a detailed proposal revealing the route and the potential design the modern streetcars could take on.
Find out more about the proposal here

Transit

January 4, 2016

In the Historic ‘Fruit Streets’ of the Heights, a $4.5M Townhouse With a Private Garage

By Michelle Cohen

Tucked into one of the city’s more picturesque enclaves on Orange Street in Brooklyn Heights, this four-story, nearly-3,000-square-foot townhouse offers modern comforts with a nod to its historic surroundings. At an ask that doesn't raise eyebrows in a neighborhood whose graceful townhouses range from pricey to record-setting–sometimes regardless of interior state–this brick-clad row house, while not loaded with grand details, gets warmth from wood beams, exposed brick, a wood-burning fireplace and restored window moldings while providing turnkey touches like central air and an updated chef's kitchen. Another plus is a private garage, not exactly common in brownstone Brooklyn.
Have a look inside

Distinctive Homes

Should the City Impose a ‘Window Tax’ for Billionaires’ Row Central Park Views?

Google Earth rendering from CityRealty showing some of the supertalls around the south end of Central Park

December 31, 2015

Should the City Impose a ‘Window Tax’ for Billionaires’ Row Central Park Views?

"The builders are charging up to $100 million for apartments that offer helicopter views of lush foliage, jagged skylines, soothing rivers and angelic clouds. They lure the superrich, many with suspect foreign assets, to sky-high mansions. They enrich themselves by exploiting weak zoning rules to pour hideous implants into Manhattan cavities." All of this, says Max Frankel, who was the executive editor of The Times from 1986 to 1994 and lives half a block from Central Park, may need some consequences. And he wonders if this should come in the form of a "user fee," where residents of these Billionaires' Row towers would have to pay a monthly "window tax" based on how high in a given tower their unit is located. And according to his "back-of-the-envelope calculations," this could bring in roughly $1 million a year per building for the city to use on public projects like street work, parks, education, and affordable housing.
More details ahead

December 30, 2015

Attractive New Bushwick Condo Rises on One of Brooklyn’s Ugliest Streets

It's rare to see a new development in Bushwick with any kind of style and grace, but a recently finished six-unit condominium at 27 Dodworth Street actually looks like some thought went into it. Even more remarkable is that it manages to do so on what is probably the most unfortunate looking street on the eastern seaboard. So breathtakingly ugly in fact that it could be thought of, by some, as chic. And as it turns out, buyers have shelled out up to $1 million for condos along this gritty stretch near the Bed-Stuy-Bushwick border.
See the good, the bad, and the ugly

December 29, 2015

First Look at Six-Family Townhouses Set for North Williamsburg

At the northern edge of Williamsburg, near the Greenpoint border, work is beginning on a 12-unit project developed by Ami Barr's Djem Land LLC and designed by Queens-based InFocus Design and Planning. The building is situated at 171-173 Bayard Street, between Graham Avenue and McGuinness Boulevard, and replaces a one-story, nondescript light industrial building that the Long Island-based developers snapped up for $1.8 million in early 2014. Renderings posted on the architect's website show an orderly facade of red brick, large sash windows, and steel lintels. A somewhat strange marble cornice tops the first three levels and the fourth story is set back, simulating a modern rooftop addition atop a rehabilitated manufacturing building.
More details ahead

December 29, 2015

Karl Fischer’s Greenpoint Development Gets a Makeover; Interiors Revealed

With its hodgepodge exterior once called "the Noah's Ark of bad design" and simply described as just plain "fugly," it seems Karl Fischer has taken the hint by reworking the design of 26 West Street into something slightly less offensive. Since the rendering reveal last April, construction is now well underway and a new image of the project has emerged on Fischer's website that shows the use of more red paneling and factory-style sash windows, a greater incorporation of balconies, and the placement of additional arched windows along its western, river-facing facade. Also shown and reflected in DOB filings is a seventh story, bringing the likely rental project up from 72 units to 96. Additionally, Fischer has now revealed the project's interiors, which seem to mix the two favored Brooklyn styles of rustic and industrial.
Check it all out

December 28, 2015

Renderings Revealed for Cantilever King ODA’s Bushwick Hotel

Back in March, 6sqft brought you renderings of a cantilevered, ziggurat-like project in Gowanus. The architects were none other than of-the-moment firm ODA, who have become the king of cantilevers and cube-like designs. The project never came to fruition (the developers noted that they won't be working with ODA), but it looks like the firm recycled some of the design ideas for their latest endeavor. ArchDaily revealed renderings for a new seven-story, 100-key hotel at 71 White Street in Bushwick. The ODA-designed structure, of course, features a dramatic cantilever with an interior courtyard and employs their signature boxy facade. It will use the foundation of a former 1930s manufacturing building, but for a true Brooklyn twist, will incorporate the existing brick graffiti wall into the new design.
More renderings and details this way

December 27, 2015

Park Slope Duplex With Spiral Staircase and Private Roof Deck Asks $6,500 a Month

Here's a Park Slope rental that comes from a three-story brownstone that's been converted into three condo apartments. This unit pretty much fits your idea of what a Park Slope apartment should be: it's located on a charming block with other brownstones, there are lovely interior details, and it's large enough to fit a family. (This is a neighborhood with a lot of babies.) It's a duplex with 1,400 square feet, three bedrooms and two bathrooms total. The condo is now on the rental market for $6,500 a month. It looks like condos in this building have been selling for over $1 million for the past few years -- this apartment actually closed in 2012 for $1.150 million.
See the interior

December 24, 2015

Brooklyn’s First 1,000+ Foot Tower Moves Forward, Developers Close on Last Site Needed

By Diane Pham

It's official, developers Michael Stern and Joe Chetrit have closed on the Dime Savings Bank building at 9 DeKalb Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn for $90 million, providing them with the air rights needed to build the borough's tallest tower. According to Crain's, who first broke the news, Stern and Chetrit will be able to transfer the bank building's 300,000 square feet of unused development rights to the new structure's site at 340 Flatbush Avenue Extension. As 6sqft previously reported, the new tower will soar more than 1,000 feet and is being designed by SHoP Architects. It will also be the city's tallest building outside of Manhattan when complete.
on the deal here

New Developments

December 22, 2015

Stubby Shotgun-Style House Asks $775K in East Bed-Stuy

Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn is a neighborhood that's famed for its architecture: majestic Italianate, Neo-Grec, Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne townhouses, churches and schools line a majority of the side streets. But this little house, at 288 Chauncey Street in East Bed-Stuy, stands in a category all its own. It looks more "New Orleans shotgun house" than Brooklyn townhouse, although it does boast a classic, historic cornice. It's also rare to see a townhouse in the neighborhood that's so stubby, with a one-story front facade (The home is actually a compact two-story, but the lower level sits mostly underground). What's even the proper price tag for such an oddball home? A few years ago, it was asking $350,000, but now that the Bed-Stuy market is so hot it's aiming high with an ask of $775,000.
Check out the interior

December 21, 2015

A Historic and Festive Three Bedroom in Cobble Hill Asks $6,000 a Month