Monthly Office Suites at 33 Nassau

07/27/2011 | Comment

Also from the Real Deal, 33 Nassau Avenue (you probably know it as the Spritzenhaus Building) is leasing monthly office space on its second floor.

175 Kent Fully Leased

07/27/2011 | Comment

The Real Deal reports that 175 Kent Avenue – a 112-unit building at the corner of North 3rd Street – is now full leased.

What really caught my eye, though, was some of the broker babble:

The 112-unit rental conversion at 175 Kent Avenue…

Conversion from what? This is a new building. Never lived in. Doesn’t a building have to have some sort of prior use to be a conversion?

…the Williamsburg waterfront property…

The waterfront is a block away. Now either side of Kent Avenue is “waterfront”.

Who’s Behind the Blight?

07/18/2011 | 1 Comment

Turns out that a lot of the stalled construction sites in Williamsburg (corner of South 4th and Bedford, 212-218 North 9th, 237-243 North 9th, 261-263 North 9th) are owned by the same pair of developers. Who also own the converted loft building at 100 South 4th Street and the vacated loft building at 239 Banker Street.

Rose Plaza Now a Conversion?

07/01/2011 | Comment

Rose Plaza: Not Coming Soon to a Waterfront Near You??

Brownstoner reports this morning that 484 Kent Avenue has a DOB permit to convert the top two floors of the building to 30 residential units. The ground floor will remain as warehouse use.

Presumably, this means that the grand plans for Rose Plaza – and its 240 affordable housing units – aren’t going to come to fruition anytime soon. If that’s the case, that is the second affordable housing project in a week to put an affordable housing promise on long-term hiatus.

Bushwick Creek, The Movie

06/23/2011 | Comment

Filmmaker Brian Walsh has made a movie about Bushwick Creek and what lies beneath. The movie was based in part (or maybe inspired by is a better phrase) a blog post I wrote over four years ago, and which was, in turn, inspired by Bob Guskind’s reporting on the “Roebling Oil Field”.

Brian’s film is posted in five parts – part 1 is shown here, but go watch the rest. It is well done, and an interesting – and eye-opening – look at the environmental legacy of North Brooklyn.

Bushwick Creek – Part 1

UPDATE: Original video link was missing sound for the first few seconds. Fixed.

NEWSFLASH: Bedford Avenue Station is Crowded

06/16/2011 | 2 Comments

The MTA has released its station ridership figures for 2010. As always, this was a big day around Brooklyn11211 (and at Second Avenue Sagas).

The big news – which should be a surprise to absolutely no one – is that the Bedford Avenue station continues to add riders. In fact, we broke 7,000,000 riders in 2010 – 7,418,203 to be exact. That makes Bedford Avenue #46 overall in the system (it was #66 in 2007), and the busiest station on the L line outside of Manhattan. (14th Street/Union Square, 6th Avenue and 8th Avenue are all busier, but they serve multiple lines; 1st Avenue and 3rd Avenue carry fewer passengers).

Over the past four years, Bedford Avenue is the 13th fastest growing station in the entire system, with ridership up 29% between 2007 and 2010 (vs. a 3% increase for the system as a whole over the same period). Bedford is not the fastest growing station on the L line over that period – that honor belongs to Morgan Avenue, which has seen a 39% increase over four years. New Lots and Livonia are also higher at 31% and 30% respectively. But those three stations are starting from a low number – combined they carry fewer passengers than Bedford Avenue, with Morgan Avenue being the busiest of the three, and ranking #224. Of the 100 fastest growing stations in the system, Bedford Avenue is by far the largest, with over 7,000,000 passengers (1st Avenue is a close second, with 6.9 million passengers, up 24% since 2007).

As you might expect, the entire L line is busier. Ridership on single-line (non-transfer) stations on the L line is up 21% since 2007, and ridership for the entire line (including transfer stations) is up 10%. Just about every station along the line (transfer and single-line) has seen double-digit growth – the exceptions being Union Square, 6th Avenue, 8th Avenue and Broadway Junction.

With most of the growth focused east of Bedford, and the huge increase in riders getting on at Bedford, it’s no wonder that the morning commute is such a nightmare. And with development picking up again, it’s not going to get better anytime soon. Something to think about tomorrow when you’re squeezing onto the fourth train to come into the station.

Edge Selling More Units

The Edge has “sold” more units in the first 5 months of 2011 than any single development sold in all of 2010.

Yes, the Edge has more units to sell than any single development on the market in 2010, but the fact that they are “selling” (signing contracts, really, but that is the PR standard, so let’s go with it) units at a pace of 30+ per month is yet another sign of a relatively strong market in North Brooklyn. Or maybe it just reinforces the old real estate adage – “location, location, location” – something the Edge also has more of than just about any other development on the market.

Williamsburg, Rocked

This Neil Smith? I guess I have to take him seriously.

(Hopefully I’ll more to say on the whole article later.)

For Williamsburg Renters, Look But Don’t Swim

Renters in the affordable housing components of the Edge and Northside Piers pay rents well below market rates (some as low as $398 per month, according to the Times). But they don’t have access to the amenities on the luxury side of the development.

A Better Look at Triangle Court

04/22/2011 | Comment

Triangle Court (proposed)
Architect: KOH Architecture
Photo: KOH Architecture via Curbed

Yesterday, Curbed posted a better image of Triangle Court. Here it is in all it’s glory.

The building will occupy the former gas station site on the western half of the triangle formed by Grand, Keap and Borinquen. The future of the rest of the triangle (under separate ownership) is not known.