Studio B Closing. (Really This Time?)

So says Brooklyn Vegan. The commenters blame “whiny neighbors”, but truth to be told, I’ve heard no whining since the place “reopened” in February. Is it possible the place just plain failed?

Home Buyers Can Live Free For A Year At Northside Piers

Given recent news, this is probably a good idea. Though it seems to me that developers need to get past the gimmicks and just start pricing their product for the 2009 market.

Depending on how you define “free”, this gimmick is up to 7.5% off the price of a unit. That’s a back of the envelope calculation based on this penthouse unit and the StreetEasy’s mortgage calculator. If “free” doesn’t include common charges, taxes, PMI and the like, the “discount” drops to around 5%.

If you’re in the market for a fabulous three-bedroom waterfront penthouse, I’d suggest offering 10% or 20% below ask and foregoing the “free” year.

Williamsburg Inventory Predicted to Double

06/26/2009 | Comment

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349 Metropolitan: Ugly and Foreclosed
Photo: Curbed


The Real Deal looks at the Williamsburg condo pipeline and doesn’t like what it sees. 5,000 new units are expected to come on line this year and next, adding to what is already a pretty saturated market in the midst of an awful real estate slump.

This really shouldn’t be a surprise – even in a market that’s moving up, the potential inventory in Williamsburg and the rest of north Brooklyn is huge. Developers (and recent buyers) are on the wrong side of what always looked like to be pretty scary supply/demand curve. The only difference is that that curve is now marked with black diamonds.

Let’s also acknowledge that there is a lot of crap on the market – and 349 Metropolitan (in the photo, above) is among the crappiest. Big ugly building, poorly constructed (judging from the stone panels that are already falling off the building) and in a pretty crappy location, even for the Northside. And the sales figures bear that out – as TRD reports, there has only been one recorded sale in the 40-unit project. (Back in February, Gowanus Lounge reported 21 units in contract, but that was before the whole project went belly up.)

Still, for quality construction in bona fide good locations, the hurt should be much less.



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A Short ULURP Report

Aaron Short is first up with a recap of last night’s CB1 Land Use Committee meeting on the Broadway Triangle rezoning.

The Committee’s recommendation was to approve the various rezoning and disposition actions with a series of caveats (among them, significant funding for business relocation, maintaining or increasing the area’s open space ratio, creating a transparent process for the disposition of city-owned property in the Triangle). The main discussion among Committee members was whether to approve with conditions or reject with the same conditions noted as objections. Interestingly, no one from the Coalition bothered to make a motion to reject the application outright. Nor was there a motion to go for the higher-density alternative, which is in scope.

As always, these votes are recommendations – the Board itself has the final say. On July 14.

CB1: Broadway Triangle

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CB1’s land use committee will take up the Broadway Triangle rezoning tonight. For those who couldn’t hear the City’s proposal at the last Board meeting, you can see it here [warning: pdf].

And for those who are wondering what the Broadway Triangle Coalition (the opposition to the City’s plan) would like to happen in the Triangle, you can see that here (click on “June 2- BTCC PLAN FOR THE BROADWAY TRIANGLE -PRESENTATION.PPS” to download a rather large PowerPoint presentation – as far as I know, there is no pdf available).

What: CB1 ULURP Committee meeting
Where: Swingin’ Sixties Senior Center, 211 Ainslie Street (cor. Manhattan Ave.), Williamsburg
Date: 23 June 2009
Time: 6:30 (Broadway Triangle portion of the meeting won’t start until 7:30 at the earliest)