Park Tower Group, one of the first New York developers to see potential in the Brooklyn waterfront, is brushing off plans for 10 luxury apartment buildings with 4,000 units on a 20-acre plot of land at the old Greenpoint Lumber Exchange, which it purchased almost a decade ago, the New York Observer reported. At least one of the towers should break ground at the site, which is currently used for construction storage and movie lots, by 2012.

Park Tower, which is headed up by developer George Klein, had delayed the project during the recession and recently shifted its focus at the site to rentals from condominiums to more easily find financing. It hopes to secure construction loans in the coming months. [more]

MySpace NYC ad

MySpace NYC, a Brooklyn-focused residential real estate firm, recently started an eye-catching company advertising campaign, as the Greenpoint/Williamsburg-based blog New York Shitty spotted on Bushwick Avenue (see ad above). MySpace NYC was founded in 2008, has offices in Williamsburg and Prospect Heights. It rents and sells units throughout the borough. This is not the first real estate company to employ sex to sell real estate. The Real Deal reported in 2007 that spicy real estate advertising had been picking up in frequency in New York City. According to its website, MySpace NYC currently has two properties for sale in Prospect Heights, a loft for $579,000 and a two-bedroom apartment for $789,000.  [New York Shitty] [more]

Park Slope residents aren’t the only people concerned with noise as new venues arrive in Brooklyn. According to the Brooklyn Paper, a free flea market planned for a waterfront lot off of West Street on weekend nights from June to October is already causing headaches for Greenpoint neighbors. The venue, named the Brooklyn Night Bazaar, is slated to include a 20-foot stage featuring local bands, vendors selling antiques, clothing and food, and a beer garden, of particular concern to residents, remaining open until 2 a.m. [more]

737 Drew Street

From the January issue: Minority and working-class Brooklyn neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy,
Canarsie and East New York have been suffering from high concentrations
of foreclosures since before 2007.
But recent statistics indicate that distress is creeping into
gentrified neighborhoods like Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Fort Greene and
Brooklyn Heights now, too. The Williamsburg-Greenpoint area saw a 141 percent quarterly
increase in foreclosure filings during the first three quarters of 2009
compared to 2008, while Fort Greene and Brooklyn Heights saw a 71
percent jump. Brooklyn-based appraiser Sam Heskel counted 99 distressed real
estate listings in Williamsburg, including 44 condominiums that are in
“pre-foreclosure.”

In their first official response to the bankruptcy filing of 20 Bayard, lawyers for W Financial Fund last week urged a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge to reject a motion by developer Isaac Hager to continue operating the Williamsburg condominium with monthly rent and parking fees. Hager, president of North Development Group, threw the 64-unit condo into bankruptcy last month, when he was unable to make a $170,000 interest payment to W Financial, or refinance a $17.4 million bridge loan. In a Dec. 9 filing, Martin Ehrenfeld, restructuring officer for the developer, asked permission to use the rent and parking fees to cover monthly maintenance charges for at least 120 days until a reorganization plan is worked out with creditors. After selling 24 apartments before the real estate market collapsed in 2008, Hager rented out nearly all of the remaining units until the condo market recovered. According to the court documents, 20 Bayard has $1.28 million in net operating income per year. [more]

Williamsburg leads Brooklyn in number of condo transactions so far for 2009, according to a November report from the Marketing Directors (see full report after the jump). The neighborhood has had 269 condo closings through November, according to the report, which gathered data from ACRIS and the listings database On-Line Residential. That’s compared to 125 in Park Slope, 77 in Greenpoint, and 60 in Prospect Heights. Williamsburg has more condo listings in 2009 — 348 — than any other neighborhood, but the neighborhood is also offering competitive pricing, according to Tara Hogan, vice president of research for the Marketing Directors. “I think for right now Williamsburg has quite a few buildings that offer great value,” Hogan said. The average sale price for closed sales in Williamsburg was $548 per square foot, the report says, a significant discount from the average asking price in the area of $757 per square foot. [more]

Trout restaurant

Three restaurants started by Brooklyn’s most prolific restaurateur, Jim Mamary, and one of his partners, Richard Krause, were abruptly closed last week with no warning to employees. And another of their Brooklyn eateries, the troubled seafood spot Trout, is unlikely to reopen after it shuttered early this fall due to slow business.

Employees at Fly Fish in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens and Bueno in Boerum Hill said they were stunned to hear at staff meetings Dec. 1 that the shift would be their last.

Bueno, a European bistro that Krause opened three months ago at the intersection of Smith and Pacific Streets, is part of a complex that also included Trout, Since 1963, also closed last week, and Pacifico. Pacifico, a Mexican cantina that Mamary no longer owns a stake in, will remain open.

“They said they needed to pull in $17,000 by week’s end and they were only pulling in $13,000,” said an employee at Bueno, who requested anonymity. “Now I’m back to square one, looking for a job on the holidays.” [more]

Are well-priced condos killing the hipster movement? The Observer reports that a younger, hipper breed of buyer is emerging, thanks to a deteriorating condo market and a glut of realtors and developers all too ready to offer concessions. One 23-year-old buyer got a $51,000 price cut on her one-bedroom condo in Greenpoint’s Ikon building at 50 Bayard Street — and the developer paid her taxes and fees as well. But this phenomenon is not without its pains. “Condo shame,” a term the Observer coined, has apparently afflicted the too-cool set, who feel they’ve lost their hipster credibility by switching up from renter to owner. [more]

WNYC’s Matthew Schuerman looked at the progress of the rezoning of 184 blocks in Greenpoint and Williamsburg. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Council agreed on the rezoning plan for the area more than four years ago, but the redevelopment is still just beginning, according to WNYC, with about 1,800 new housing units completed or under construction. The rezoning is expected to bring around 17,000 people to Greenpoint and Williamsburg, neighborhoods that have already been gentrifying and expanding. Most of the new buildings will be in keeping with the size of the neighborhoods’ current structures, but developers are allowed to build high-rises on the waterfront in exchange for including affordable housing.

Citi-Spaces yesterday closed one of its four offices, according to
company founder Israel Horowitz, who squelched pervasive rumors that
the 60-agent company is folding. “I never thought of closing,” Horowitz said, adding that he, too, has
heard rumors of the company’s shuttering from agents interviewing with
the residential sales and rentals brokerage. The perception is so
widespread, he said, that four different firms have approached him in
recent months with offers to buy or merge with Citi-Spaces. “I was considering it, but a merger didn’t make sense,” he said. “What
made sense was to get rid of the office that was causing the headaches.” That office was Citi-Spaces’ East Village branch at 174 Second Avenue,
between 11th and 12th streets. The 27-agent storefront branch opened
eight months ago, just as the city was descending into the financial
turmoil, at a rent reflecting the previous hot market, he said. [more]