Chetrit Stitches Up Hospital Buy for $15 Million
Brooklyn Hospital may not have found a cure for its ailing finances, but it recently got a $15.6 million band-aid. That’s the price the Chetrit Group paid for the former Caledonian Hospital on Parkside Avenue, according to public records. The multi-building complex—which fronts Prospect Park—can support a residential development larger than 200,000 square feet. Caledonian…
Brooklyn Hospital may not have found a cure for its ailing finances, but it recently got a $15.6 million band-aid. That’s the price the Chetrit Group paid for the former Caledonian Hospital on Parkside Avenue, according to public records. The multi-building complex—which fronts Prospect Park—can support a residential development larger than 200,000 square feet. Caledonian was downgraded from a hospital to a health center a few years ago, according to Across the Park. (Non sequitur: We’re not sure exactly what neighborhood this is in, since it’s not exactly Prospect Park South or Prospect Lefferts Gardens, far as we can tell. This just plan ol’ Flatbush?) The property’s high-flying buyer, the Chetrit Group, owns more than 50 commercial and residential buildings across the U.S., including a stake in the Sears Tower. And the firm’s been making significant inroads into Brooklyn lately, with developments planned for two sites in Williamsburg. Given the prime location next to the park and the big footprint, seems like the smart money would be on Chetrit razing Caledonian and building a condo. But, then again, who knows where the smart money is nowadays. GMAP P*Shark
41 years ago as a nursing student at Caledonian Hospital and living in the nurses residence at 45 Woodruff Avenue, just across the ambulance entrance. I met a hospital employee there who became my husband we lived at 1600 Caton Avenue until the mid 1970s when the neighborhood became difficult. Its encouraging (although sad) to see Caledonian boarded up and that it might one day become condos. Thanks for a trip down memory lane.
Don’t knock Kings County Hospital! I got taken there after a car jumped the curb and hit a very pregnant me (and, luckily, a lamppost too). The care there was excellent, and you should have seen their new birthing facility. They’ve got a brand new building that’s the best hospital facility I’ve seen in Brooklyn–I’m not kidding.
Before Caldonian Hospital closed, I was boiling water for spaghetti, spilled some of the water as I strained it and sustained several small third degree burns on my stomach. My husband drove me to Caldonian because he said it was the closest hospital. I was in pain but arguing that the hospital had been closed for over twenty years and had been converted into apartments. Luckily for me, that day it was still a hospital where I was treated immediately and with the utmost care unlike what would have happened if he had taken me to Kings County. The rule in our house is Kings County only if we get shotor run over by a Mack truck! My premonition of apartments in that location is now comming to fruition. I hope something good happens there.
12:15 here 12:20. I meant what I wrote, Victorain Flatbush (as in Victorian Flatbush House Tour)which would include both PPS and Caton Park. All of these micro-nabes and areas not known by any official name make up VICTORIAN FLATBUSH or as I called it before moving here either Flatbush or Ditmas.
I live on Parade Place and have for 20 years. As for the name: the area is Flatbush; even Prospect Park South is part of Flatbush. (It’s no different from Kew Gardens in Queens really being a part of the larger entity of Jamaica.) Prospect Park South defines the historic district, but even parts of Brooklyn Heights that aren’t landmarked are still considered part of the Heights. So whether one calls it Prospect Park South (which it certainly is) or (as I do) the very northern edge of Flatbush, I’m happy the building will be converted to residential use. The immediate area has two new buildings almost done that will (I believe) both be expensive condos (one is on Crooke Ave. just two blocks from Caledonian and the other on Caton Ave., another block south). The area is begging for gentrification and the housing stock is good; only the residents need some upgrading. Maybe then, the lattes will come, along with a better selection of stores and merchandise (and even some arugula).
No development sites sell for $78 a square foot in Brooklyn. Something is unusual about this transaction.
I live on Woodruff btw Ocean Ave and St. Johns Place and I call it anything from Flatbush or Prospect Park South. I agree with Brenda on the B-COT with what’s been going on in the past few months. It’s a nice neighborhood with plenty of housing, I hope they don’t turn it into condo’s.
I’d think it’s more SOOPLG, because property shark shows it’s in the 71st precinct which covers Crown Heights and PLG. And the commercial district residents would use would be Flatbush near the Parkside Q stop, simply because that’s where they’d get off the subway from work.
This handsome old hospital building holds so many fond memories, like the ER staff “trying to find a doctor” when we brought my mother in at 1 a.m. with a broken hip. Funny thing was, it took me years to realize how solid and stately the original building was, since Caledonian had a bass-ackwards main entrance *behind* it where it joined the wee parking lot and the newer extension.
As for the immediate environs, I suggest coining a new moniker, EaParGro–“East of Parade Grounds.” (No stupider than “BoCoCa”!) We in “Caton Park” (or “NoProPaSo,” that is, “North of Prospect Park South”) officially call this neighborhood, “Be Careful Over There,” or, “B-COT.” I understand that, in points northeast of the sector, it is called “SOOPLG” (pronounced “soup-ulgh”), for “South of Prospect Lefferts Gardens.”
By the way, the first person to mass-market a franchise selling jerk chicken AND latte (“Jerk’n’Perk”?) will become a billionaire. Let it begin in B-COT!