Brownstoner's Profile
- Mr. B
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Author's Posts
August 8, 2008
Open House Picks
Park Slope
108 Berkeley Place
Corcoran
Sunday 12:30-2
$2,650,000
GMAP P*Shark
Windsor Terrace
1604 10th Avenue
Turner Structures
Sunday 1-3
$1,775,000
GMAP P*Shark
Windsor Terrace
247 Windsor Place
Brooklyn Properties
Sunday 12-2
$1,250,000
GMAP P*Shark
East Flatbush
3325 Farragut Road
Fillmore
Sunday 1-3
$559,000
GMAP P*Shark
Auction Time for 306 St. James Place
At the same public auction where 82 Cambridge is coming on the block, 306 St. James Place will also go to the highest bidder. This one's not looking quite so cheap though. According to the flier, the opening bid for the four-story, two-family house is $1,400,000. It's probably still a good deal at that price, judging from the one interior photo, but we doubt it'll end up going for a whole lot more.
Public Sale 8/13/08 [NYC.gov - PDF] GMAP P*Shark
82 Cambridge Place Coming Up For Auction [Brownstoner]
Bird Blog: Week 13
Every week, Jennifer Mankins, owner of the Bird boutiques, tells us about the new 2,500-square-foot store on Grand Street in Williamsburg that she's getting ready to open. Up this week: Contractor Walk-throughs. For a larger set of plans, click through.
Two weeks ago, Ole (architect), Mark (LEED specialist) and Stephanie met with four different general contractors to walk through the space and talk about the bid process. Ole had prepared the preliminary pricing sets – an initial set of design plans for the space, which include most of the materials that we have picked out. They are similar to what are called ‘bid sets’, but less detailed. The main reason we decided to do this, to go with a less detailed set of drawings, is time. While the contractors begin to look at the design aesthetic, the major building themes and materials, and become familiar with the LEED requirements, Ole and I can settle on the finer details. Plus, this first phase may actually narrow the field – after reviewing the plans and learning about LEED, some contractors may not still be interested.
Because the LEED specifications are so new, three of the four potential contractors have never completed a LEED certified job, and Mark’s concern is that these contractors really don’t know what they’re in for in terms of management and paperwork. To facilitate the bidding process, Mark put together an extensive booklet outlining the LEED requirements particular to our project and specifying exactly how we wanted the bids formatted. This will make it easier to compare the different bids, and ensure that the contractors have addressed all the issues.
We scheduled the walk-throughs for an hour apart, starting at 2 pm. The first to arrive was Danny, a contractor we had previously met during the bidding process for our recent 5th Avenue store renovation in Park Slope...
Commercial Klutch: August Edition
Today our anonymous embedded columnist delivers the third installment in what is now a monthly feature on the state of commercial real estate in Brooklyn...
As we are doing to a degree in residential real estate, Brooklyn is bucking the regional down-trend in certain commercial markets: retail; creative office space; mid-size Class A leasing; legal services. Example – after years of having just a handful of law offices larger than 5,000 square feet, DUMBO’s 55 Washington (above) has a new 12,000-square-foot firm, 16 Court is getting one this fall and Weil Gotshal is placing 35,000 square feet of back-office in MetroTech sublet space.
While the bloom is off the commercial landlord’s rose in Manhattan, prices are up, pushing a certain number of tenants across the River. Tenants now paying $27 a foot in midtown south face a doubling of rent if they stay on that tourist trap of an island. Those with principals and staff living in our groovy borough look at low-$20s per foot in DUMBO for a big space, mid-$30s on Court or MetroTech, and they wake up and smell the gorilla coffee. We only need a few manhattan island tenants to fill space here, and you know, that is all we want.
MetroTech – good news/bad news...
August 7, 2008
Development Watch: Pratt Starts on New Myrtle Project
Almost a year after first announcing the details, Pratt took an initial step towards building its new 120,000-square-foot academic building at 524 Myrtle Avenue on the site where Kentucky Fried Chicken once stood. As we reported last September, the new 7-story structure will not only create space for the Digital Arts program, grad student studios and administrative offices but also will provide 15,000 square feet of retail along Myrtle Avenue. As of now, they only have clearance for the plywood fence that went up in recent days, as the new building application has yet to get DOB's seal of approval.
Pratt Reveals Plans for Myrtle KFC Site [Brownstoner] GMAP P*Shark DOB
Streetlevel: Mikey's Hooking Up Dumbo
Like the performance space Galapagos before it, Mikey's Hook Up, which has been serving the computer needs of Williamsburgers since before the first condo went up, will be taking advantage of Two Trees' hospitality in Dumbo. The move, which was first reported on DumboNYC last month, was confirmed by Jed Walentas at Tuesday's Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable. According to DumboNYC, the retailer, which also offers audio, video and music supplies and support, signed a 10-year lease for a 2,165-square-foot space on the Front Street side of the building. Good news for those of us with an office in the neighborhood!
Mikey's Hook Up GMAP
House of the Day: 440 Henry Street
The four-story brownstone at 440 Henry Street in Cobble Hill looks like it's probably a little worse for the wear, but it also sounds like it has enough of its original charm intact that it could be a great house with some TLC. There are no interior photos (love the winter exterior shot, though) so all we have to go on is the adjective-heavy description of the existing "fireplace mantel, majestic tin ceilings, picturesque moldings, and brilliant wood floors." It's hard to tell for sure, but we'd bet those windows are not wooden, Landmarks-compliant ones. Assuming there's a good $500,000 of renovations needed on this bad-boy, do you think the asking price of $1,999,000 is achievable?
440 Henry Street [NY Times] GMAP P*Shark
Condo of the Day: 1405 8th Avenue
This 715-square-foot two-bedroom condo at 1405 8th Avenue looks nice—and photographs well—but we'll be surprise if it's able to sell for the asking price of $629,000. That would translate into a valuation of almost $900 a foot which sounds like a lot for a ground-floor apartment, even one that's just one block from Prospect Park and has monthly carrying costs of just $440. What do you think?
1405 8th Avenue [Brooklyn Heights RE] GMAP P*Shark
Inside Third & Bond: Week 48
Since settling on GoCaGa-RedHook-FarSlope as our neighborhood, we have turned our attention to the next step in branding our project: logos. The logos in this post are some of the many great ideas Clarke/Thompson threw at us earlier this week when we sat down with them, our brokers from Corcoran, Leslie Marshall and James Cornell, and our new marketing guru consultant, Karen Auster of Auster Events. We wish we could unveil the logos for you with the same drama as Clarke/Thompson’s Katy Dwyer, who with great deliberation showcased each logo by flipping around a blank card to display the design while Pat Thompson and Melissa Hewitt took careful observation of which logos made our pulses rush and scalps tingle. Instead, you’ll have to scroll slowly down yourself. Voting is at the bottom, as is your opportunity to tell us in your own words which one you’d like to place your t-shirt order for.
A good logo is like an Olympic gymnast...
Author's Comments
Agreed that the other one looked nicer in the pics...
Posted by: brownstoner at July 11, 2006 11:47 AM in response to Condo of the Day: Stretching on Wyckoff?
Maybe we're biased cuz we live pretty close to here, but proximity to Nets arena doesn't seem to be a big concern for this immediate area. Too far away for basketball fans to park, that's for sure...
Posted by: brownstoner at July 11, 2006 1:23 PM in response to House of the Day: Overpriced on St.James?
whoops. thanks. fixed it.
Posted by: brownstoner at July 12, 2006 10:29 AM in response to Big Turnout For AY Housing Forum
Well, depends on what the other zoning rules are and the context. This one property will be worth more if someone can put up a sliver tower, sure, but if every beautiful old building in the area was demo'd and replaced with ugly tall buildings, the area would become less desirable and valuable, certainly on a per square foot basis.
Posted by: brownstoner at July 12, 2006 10:35 AM in response to Wednesday Links
we'll check out that akismet thang...
Posted by: brownstoner at July 12, 2006 11:18 AM in response to Site Registration for Commenting
Less than ideal, we know. We're looking into some other options...
Posted by: brownstoner at July 13, 2006 9:47 AM in response to Using Typekey: Just a Little Patience
Forgot to ask: If anyone has the guidebook from the house tour, could you please look up the street number...Thanks
Posted by: brownstoner at July 14, 2006 9:38 AM in response to Stepping Out On FG Park (For Almost $4 Mil!)
Whoops. Thanks. Must be the jet lag...
Posted by: brownstoner at July 26, 2006 9:51 AM in response to Former Brig to Yield Up to 400 Units of Housing
True, unless there was work done. The interior looks to be in pretty nice shape, don't you think?
Posted by: brownstoner at August 1, 2006 1:43 PM in response to House of the Day: Revisiting Glenwood Road
1930 sounds too late to us...
Posted by: brownstoner at July 11, 2006 11:23 AM in response to Architecture 101: Inniss Franciscan House