DoBro’s population up 50% from last year

Downtown Brooklyn is showing no signs of ceding its title as the city’s fastest-growing neighborhood, even though shopping and public services have yet to catch up with residential development, the Post reported. According to new data from the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, there are now 12,000 residents of DoBro’s 16-block core, including the Fulton Mall, MetroTech complex and the Jay and Willoughby street corridors, up 50 percent from just one year ago. And the neighborhood is barely recognizable as its decade-ago self, when it had a mere 400 residents and a streetscape peppered with 99-cent stores. Another 2,500 people are expected to move in by 2013, and around 60 percent of the neighborhood’s new residents live in high-end rentals, of which there are many, thanks to the struggling market for condominiums. But commercial development has lagged behind expectations as a result of the credit crunch. Officials had projected in 2007 that Downtown Brooklyn would have 3.2 million square feet of new retail and office space by 2012. So far, only 726,000 square feet has come to fruition. [Post]

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