Browsing Tag

Architecture

Construction Ensues For BBP’s Squibb Park Bridge

August 25, 2012

Following Mr. Karl’s video progress report Thursday on the Squibb Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Facebook page featured its own pic Thursday sharing progress on the bridge, which will connect Brooklyn Heights to BBP: “Check out the first bridge pier being installed at the uplands of Pier 1. Looking forward to watching as Squibb Bridge is built!”

As Brownstoner reminds us, Squibb Bridge will connect Squibb Park, right off the neighborhood’s Columbia Heights, to Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier One, where the upcoming mega-hotel and condo complex are scheduled to be built. Construction began on the bridge this spring.


Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/46265

From the Web

BBP Offers View of Squibb Park Bridge Progress

August 25, 2012

Following Mr. Karl’s video progress report Thursday on the Squibb Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Facebook page features its own pic sharing progress on the bridge, which will connect Brooklyn Heights to BBP: “Check out the first bridge pier being installed at the uplands of Pier 1. Looking forward to watching as Squibb Bridge is built!”

As Brownstoner reminds us, Squibb Bridge will connect Squibb Park, right off the neighborhood’s Columbia Heights, to Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier One, where the upcoming mega-hotel and condo complex are scheduled to be built. Construction began on the bridge this spring.


Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/46265

From the Web

Brooklyn Heights, Landmark Preservation, Real Estate

NY Observer’s Deep Dish On Willowtown Mansion Sale

August 22, 2012

The manse at 40 Willow Place that sold for $7.3M, as we reported Tuesday, gets a deeper look in a story published by the New York Observer. It begins: “The modern masterpiece may not be able to command a sales price like some of its Brooklyn Heights neighbors—to wit, Truman Capote’s old abode at 70 Willow Street set a borough record when it sold for $12 million in March—but in the eyes of the tax assessor’s office, it is the finest in the borough.”

The Observer reports that new owners Charles Brian and Elizabeth O’Kelley, who moved from a West Village penthouse, will pay a heap of taxes for the 45-foot, 6,500sf home, which has an assessed market value of $6.35M (compared to the Capote house, valued at $5.14M). Sellers William and Kathleen Reiland bought the house for $3.1M in 2005.

Further, the property was first listed by Corcoran broker Deborah Rieders last October, asking $7.5M. It briefly entered contract in late fall, but didn’t close and returned to the market in April. She notes it is one of only three other modern houses in the neighborhood, all built on empty lots in the 1960s. Designed by Mary and Joseph Merz (among BHB’s Top 10 Most Interesting People in 2011), the home was featured in a 1966 issue of Architectural Record and is landmarked, despite its more recent vintage.

Rieders says that typically, it’s the older “grand dames” of the Heights that tend to fetch the neighborhood’s highest prices, in the $10M to $12M range. The five-bedroom, five-bath home has double-height ceilings with skylights, a 1,500-square-foot great room with a slate burning fireplace, a glass penthouse with a Japanese soaking tub and a rear curtain on the living spaces and bedrooms “that brings light streaming into the house all day,” according to the listing.

See more photos in the sideshow at the Observer here. (Photo: New York Observer, via Corcoran)


Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/46202

From the Web

Brooklyn Heights, Real Estate

Acclaimed 40 Willow Place Mansion Sells for $7.35 Million

August 22, 2012

When it comes to lofty living in Brooklyn Heights, it’s tough to top the home at 40 Willow Place, which has sold for $7.35M—a mere shaving off of its October 2011 list price of $7.5M. The 7,400-square-foot, three-story, 45-foot-wide modernist home, built in the 1960s, entered into contract May 7 and closed August 3, with its deed recorded August 15, according to Brownstoner. Needless to say, it was the largest closing in all of Brooklyn last week. The property, which has been wholly renovated, has an assessed value of $6.14M and last sold for $3.1M in 2003.

According to Property Shark, among the 10 most valuable single-family mansions in the city—including Manhattan—this home ranked No. 1 last June. Meanwhile, the Corcoran listing describes 40 Willow Place, designed by Joe and Mary Merz, as “the perfect marriage of sleek minimalism and functional modernism,” with multiple outdoor spaces, a garage, five bedrooms, five baths, a 1,500sf great room with slate wood burning fireplace, library, family room and double-height rec room. Read more at Corcoran here.


Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/46180

From the Web

Brooklyn Heights, Real Estate

Worst 4BR Floorplan Ever at 20 Henry?

August 21, 2012

Curbed has taken a look at the floor plan of one of the fancier apartments planned for 20 Henry Street, and quotes a tipster as saying “it’s one of the worst 4BR floorplans she’s seen”. Take a look here, and let us know what you think.


Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/46159

From the Web

Web Series Checks Out “Garden Room” on Joralemon Street

August 21, 2012

SpacesTV, a YouTube web series, checks out a unique “Garden Room” somewhere on Joralemon Street in Brooklyn Heights. Can you figure out where? Watch the video after the jump.


Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/46155

From the Web

Brooklyn Heights, Downtown Brooklyn

Looking Up: Half-Dozen Skyscrapers On The Rise In Downtown BK

August 15, 2012

It appears the historic Williamsburg Bank building at 1 Hanson Place, which stood for decades as the tallest structure in Brooklyn, at 512 feet & 37 stories, is now just one of the crowd. As gentrification continues in Downtown Brooklyn, at least a half-dozen highrise residential towers are in the works.

The New York Observer tallies the progress, noting the skyline along Flatbush Avenue “has been utterly transformed” in recent years, as six new apartment towers rose during the last building boom: the Toren, the Brooklyner, the Oro, Avalon Fort Greene, the DKLB and Forte.

Adding to those projects (with BHB research from Brownstoner, Real Deal, Curbed):
* The Oro 2 at the corner of Gold and Johnson Streets is now getting off the ground, which will rise to 35 stories with 208 apartments.
* Billionaire John Catsimatidis is preparing the second of four buildings on Myrtle Avenue between Ashland Place and Flatbush Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn. At the end of June he filed for a 15-story mixed-use building with 160,000sf of residential and 13,000sf of commercial.
* 29 Flatbush Avenue, where construction is well under way. The 42-story rental building is slated for 2013 completion.
* Two Trees is developing a formerly city-owned property at Flatbush & Lafayette near BAM, which is said to include a residential tower and public open space.
* City Point Phase 2 facing Fulton Street Mall, is set to begin construction in the coming months. The nearly complete Phase 1 (due to house Century 21) comprises 45,000sf of retail space; while Phase 2 will include a 250-unit 19-story tower and a 400-unit 30-story tower—both residential rental—connected by a four-story structure containing a half-million square feet of retail. Phase 3 is supposed to be a 54-story tower, but so far remains penciled in on the drawing board.
* Still in the planning stages: The Hub from movie moguls David and Douglas Steiner, which calls for a 52-story, 720-rental unit tower at Flatbush and Schermherhorn.
* 85 Flatbush Avenue Extension—a triangle-shaped parcel at Flatbush, Tillary and Duffield—remains ripe for development, after Brooklyn-based North Development Group, led by developer Isaac Hager, planned to build a 21-story, 108-unit residential condo tower at the vacant site, which stalled at year-end 2011.


Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/45622

From the Web

Real Estate

Pierrepont’s Beloved Herman Behr Mansion Shrouded In Netting

August 15, 2012

One of Brooklyn Heights’ mightiest architectural triumphs, the Romanesque Revival Herman Behr Mansion at 82 Pierrepont Street—which changed hands in 2008 for $10.98 million—has been covered in netting, as it undergoes a mass of restoration to its facade.

It was built in 1888 by architect Frank Freeman for $80,000, and named after the mining industrialist who built it—and had a sordid existence after its namesake died. (Behr’s son Karl, a renowned tennis pro, survived the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.) In 1919, after the family relocated upstate—with a massive add-on—it became The Hotel Palm, which those in the know were aware was a neighborhood bordello.

Afterward, as the Franciscan House of Studies, it housed the Order of the Franciscan monks, who were sent to the Brooklyn Heights locale when they needed a place to “dry out.” In 1977, it was converted to 26 rental apartments (six lucky bastards are rent-stabilized), and it has remained 100% occupied since.

(Info extracted from Chuck Taylor’s The Smoking Nun blog here.)


Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/45755

From the Web

Brooklyn Heights, History, Real Estate

Heights History: 70 Clark Street At Henry, 1948

August 14, 2012

The six-story apartment building at 70 Clark Street and Henry is photographed here September 15, 1948. Note the three towering TV antennas along the roofline. The street-level retail gave us Parker Drugs, offering a lunch counter and soda fountain; with “Soda and Lunch,” “Cosmetics and Cigars” advertised along the front signage. (See details below.)

Today, 70 Clark, across the street from the St. George Hotel, is the location of Clark’s Restaurant and Ozu Japanese, while the residential coop has changed precious little over the past 50+ years. According to a recent Prudential Douglas Elliman listing, many of the building’s units feature 9-foot ceilings, along with a common garden between its twin structures.

(Historic Photo: Wurtz Brothers, Museum of the City of New York/Current: Chuck Taylor)


Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/45694

From the Web

Brooklyn Heights, Real Estate

The Latest On 172-174 Montague’s Street Future Residential Highrise

August 14, 2012

So we were apparently a little tardy in our weekend post about the closing of Montague Street’s Hallmark store. Let’s make good by sharing the latest on the building planned for 172-174 Montague, which will replace the two-story structure that once held Eammon’s and Hallmark.

First, the Brooklyn Eagle reveals that new owner “BH 1 CD LLC,” is operated by principals Eli Stoll and Charles Dayan. A little more digging by BHB shows that the company is based at 499 Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. As previously reported, the 8,150/sf building (and 5,000/sf lot) sold for $12 million. The current 50-foot wide and 95-feet deep structure—which also has a cellar—was originally constructed in 1925, and does not fall within the Brooklyn Heights Landmark District and thus is not subject to its 50 foot height limit. According to Property Shark, the building was most recently assessed at a value of $1,699,650.

With a C5-2/DB zoning designation, the property is approved for 60,000 buildable square feet and “significant air rights,” with a demolition permit already issued by the Department of Buildings, the Eagle says. Originally, an application was filed to construct a 19-story, 66-unit mixed-use residential building—but was nixed by DOB July 10.

Besen & Associates, which brokered the deal, says the seller Robar, LLC (a private investor) “resisted the temptation to sell his air rights on several occasions after receiving unsolicited offers,” according to David Davidson, who represented the seller with Besen’s Lynda Blumberg. That includes a bid from the developer of the 34-story Archstone luxury rental next door, at 180 Montague Street. It was built in 1999, and sold in 2006 to residential REIT Archstone Smith for $101 million.


Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/45576

From the Web