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From the September issue:The market is heating up for condominiums, according to recent statistics for 2011. So far this year, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has received offering plans for 89 proposed new condos containing some 1,903 new units, The Real Deal reported in the September issue, putting him on track to receive 133 by the end of 2011. That’s compared with the 444 new condo projects for which developers submitted plans in 2008. Some of the biggest new developments brewing, according to 2011 filings (See the top five in the chart above and the full chart after the jump), are in Williamsburg. New Manhattan properties are slated for Chelsea, Tribeca and Greenwich Village.  [more]

A new Toll Brothers development in Dumbo has a waiting list of 1,100,
the Brooklyn Eagle reported. The property, at  205 Water Street, is still
under construction, and is estimated to be ready for sales and
marketing in September, with closings commencing in spring 2012.
The design, by architecture firm GreenbergFarrow, had the aim of reflecting the project’s
loft-like industrial neighbors. “We have a list of about 1,100 names
of people interested in this project,” Todd Dumaresq, marketing
manager at Toll Brothers City Living, told the Eagle on a tour of 205
Water Street, between Bridge Street and Jay Street, last week. [more]

Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood is experiencing a mini-boom as rezoning and a strong demand for housing take hold in the hotly-desired neighborhood. There are around 3,600 people currently living in the area, according to Alexandria Sica, executive director of the Dumbo Improvement District, but with new housing developments sprouting up across the area, she expects there to be 4,000 by the end of 2011.Toll Brothers is proceeding with a 65-unit condominium at 205 Water Street thanks to rezoning approved by the city in 2009, according to the Wall Street Journal. Construction is slated to finish in 2012 with apartment prices averaging about $800 per square foot. [more]

Toll Brothers will launch sales at its two latest New York City condominiums this fall, with occupancy slated for the summer of 2012, CEO Douglas Yearley, who took over the company’s helm from founder Robert Toll last year, told the New York Times. Yearley said he expects the first project, a 67-unit, Greenberg Farrow-designed building at 205 Water Street in Dumbo, to average $800 per square foot, or between $500,000 for studios and $2 million for penthouses. The second, a boutique condo at 132 East 65th Street called Tourraine, is the developer’s first on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and will ask $2,000 per square foot for its 22 units, he said. [more]

Robert Toll and a rendering of 205 Water Street

Toll
Brothers is setting up a new Dumbo construction and sales office next
door to the vacant former site of the Brillo soap pad factory, where
the luxury builder has proposed a 67-unit condominium tower, according
to Crain’s. The Toll Brothers lease is for two years in the
3,200-square-foot ground floor retail space at 215 Water Street, where
landlord Pearl Street Realty was asking $30 per square foot. If all
goes according to plan, the office will soon become the condo sales
office for Toll Brothers’ adjacent 10-story condo at 205 Water Street, which was unanimously approved
by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission in April. The builder
bought the site for $8.6 million, or $100 per square foot, at the end
of last year, and plans to begin construction later this year. But if
not, the company has the option to cancel the lease next door after 18
months, said David Von Spreckelsen, a senior vice president at Toll
Brothers. Yesterday, the company announced that it would also form a new distressed property venture that would pursue distressed loan and property portfolios, among other investment opportunities. [Crain's]

[more]

Robert Toll and a rendering of 205 Water Street

As expected, the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved Toll Brothers’ proposed condo at 205 Water Street in Dumbo yesterday, giving the 67-unit project the final go-ahead. The rust-colored steel and concrete design by Greenberg Farrow is shorter than the maximum 12 stories allowed by current zoning at the site, and unlike the developers of other Brooklyn condos, Toll Brothers did not need to meet any requirement for affordable housing there. All units at the building and 86 underground parking spaces, will be sold at market rates. [Curbed]

Robert Toll and a rendering of 205 Water Street

Toll Brothers’ planned residential tower on Dumbo’s Water Street cleared the first phase of the public review process when a Community Board 2 committee approved the project’s design in an 8-3 vote last night. Toll Brothers’ plans call for 67 market-rate apartments and 86 underground parking spaces. Current zoning in the district allows for up to 12-story buildings and does not have the 20 percent affordable housing requirement that other areas of Brooklyn have, so the steel and gray concrete project at 205 Water Street glided through the vote easily. “We loved the gritty nature of this industrial area, and that was our inspiration,” said Navid Maqami of Greenberg Farrow, which designed the project. Toll Brothers, which recently abandoned its long-planned Gowanus Canal development after it garnered a Superfund designation from the Environmental Protection Agency, will now need to win approval from the full community board before an April 6 vote by the Landmarks Commission. [Brooklyn Paper] [more]

Toll Brothers is looking to build as high as it can get away with on its new 205 Water Street site in new Dumbo Historic District. The luxury home builder bought the vacant site for $8.6 million in December. Toll has a 120-foot, 70-unit tower in mind, but needs approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission before moving forward. The neighborhood was rezoned last year, putting a 12-story limit on residential construction. “We’re going back and forth on height at this point,” said David Von Spreckelsen, a spokesperson for Toll. “If there were no Landmarks Commission, we’d go to 12 stories without question.” Toll has yet to give any clues as to what the building would look like. The site, on Plymouth and Water streets, had briefly been considered for the middle school component of David Walentas’ Brooklyn Bridge project, which was ultimately moved to Dock Street and approved last year after a long battle with Community Board 2. [Brooklyn Paper]

From the February issue:
Thirty years ago, the notion that the largely industrial area at the foot of the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges would one day command some of the highest prices in Brooklyn real estate might have seemed about as plausible as an elephant taking wing. Nowadays, of course, Dumbo is well established as one of Brooklyn’s most sought-after neighborhoods. So much so that it has weathered the real estate downturn better than Brooklyn as a whole — a reality that the few developers planning projects in Dumbo hope continues. In December, the publicly traded luxury home builder Toll Brothers closed on a parcel of land at 205 Water Street where the firm intends to develop a condo with approximately 70 units. Toll paid $8.6 million for the land and hopes to start building by the end of the year. “Dumbo is fairly unique within the Brooklyn market,” said David Von Spreckelsen, a senior vice president with Toll Brothers. “It’s really been holding value better than the other neighborhoods in Brooklyn, and if you look at [condo] resales they’re at really strong numbers.”  [more]