Residents at the Cobble Hill Towers, the moderate-income rental building at 431 Hicks Street, are riled over a plan to transform their Brooklyn home into a luxury condo building, according to the Brooklyn Paper. Developer Hudson Companies is offering reduced prices for current residents, ranging from $230,000 for a studio to $595,000 for a three-bedroom, but this has done little to quell outrage among many of the tenants, who see the move as another unwelcome sign of gentrification. [more]

Cobble Hill Towers’ condo conversion plan has been approved by the attorney general’s office, according to property owner the Hudson Companies. The 188-unit, nine-building complex at 431 Hicks Street, built in 1879, is currently a rental building. Hudson, which has owned the complex since 2008, said it plans to continue its upgrade projects on the building, which have, so far, included the renovation of the first-floor hallways and rebuilding of the historic gates at the entrances of the complex’s courtyards. TRD

CB Richard Ellis has negotiated the $8 million sale of three vintage fire houses in Greenwich Village, Midtown and Cobble Hill. Meanwhile, a report has surfaced showing that just one third of residents in New York City affordable housing are employed and, in the race to win the contract for the Aqueduct race track project, a group of more than 25 minority and women-owned business organizations have thrown their support behind the SL Green/Hard Rock development team. Click here for more. TRD [more]

The decline of sales prices in Brooklyn and Queens accelerated in the
second quarter of 2009, with both boroughs showing double-digit annual
price drops, according to quarterly market reports released today by
Prudential Douglas Elliman. In Brooklyn, the median sales price
slipped 16 percent to $441,090 in the second quarter, from $525,000 in
the same period of 2008. Queens, meanwhile, saw a 13.8 percent decline
in median sales price, to $362,000 in the first quarter from $420,000
in the second quarter of 2008. For both boroughs, that’s a more
dramatic increase in median price drops than first-quarter 2009, when
Brooklyn saw a 10 percent decline in median sales prices compared to
first-quarter 2008, and the Queens median price fell 5 percent. [more]

From the July issue: One: That’s the number of apartments that closed in Cobble Hill in May.
There was also just one single solitary closing the month before that
in April, according to research compiled by StreetEasy. This month The
Real Deal zeroed in on the area to find out what kinds of deals were
making it to closing. While on the face of it, that one deal seems like
a pretty bleak indicator of the market in the Brooklyn neighborhood,
those in the know maintain it’s not nearly as bad as it appears. Comments

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Gerard Longo is expanding his business to brownstone Brooklyn.

Marine Park-based residential brokerage Madison Estates and Properties
is expanding into brownstone Brooklyn and is planning a leap into
Manhattan. The 60-agent firm will open a new office in a renovated brownstone at
53 Douglass Street in Carroll Gardens by mid-June, according to Gerard
Longo, the firm’s president. The move doubles the number of company
offices from its lone location at 2922 Avenue R in Marine Park in the
southeastern section of Brooklyn. Longo said his aim is to take advantage of the down market to grow the name brand in the rest of Brooklyn. [more]