Suddenly, developers flocking to Gowanus

The smelly waters of the Gowanus canal aren’t keeping developers from sniffing out the area’s opportunity. Big-name developers such as the Lightstone Group and Sterling Equities are bringing rental and condo buildings to Gowanus, and investors predict an increase in development activity in the coming years.

Lightstone, for example, will complete the first phase of its 700-unit rental complex at 363-365 Bond Street in fall 2015. Lightstone stepped in for Toll Brothers, which abandoned its plans for 450 condos at the site in 2010. And at 345 Carroll Street, Sterling plans to build a 30-unit condo building. Property Markets Group, which is a co-developer of the Walker Tower, has also bet on the area with the $14 million purchase of a 25,000-square-foot warehouse at 318 Nevins Street.

Developers who have opted to sell in the area have reaped big rewards. JDS Development Group and Property Market Groups, for example, sold a luxury rental building at 202 8th Street for $37.8 million in September, as TRD reported.

Gowanus is “surrounded by some of the best neighborhoods in all of New York,” Lightstone executive Scott Avram told the New York Post, “along with restaurants, boutiques and bars — everything you’d look for in a residential community.”

This month, the bar-cum-shuffleboard court Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club opened at 514 Union Street, according to the newspaper. And in December, Gowanus welcomed its first Whole Foods at 214 Third Street.   [NYP]  – Hiten Samtani