Developers begin migration from L to J, M, Z and G trains

With roughly two years left before the L train shuts down for repairs, developers aren’t wasting time. Already previously less desirable areas in Greenpoint and South Williamsburg are hot grounds for investment.

“There were already a lot of natural drivers pushing people into Greenpoint, but the L train shutdown has meant more people paying attention to it,” Anthony Morena, who heads up the architecture and development firm Mortar, told the New York Times. “We’ve had buyers who were looking strictly at Williamsburg who have started looking at other options.”

However, appraiser Jonathan Miller told the Times that the shutdown “is a window, not a permanent structural change,” and it therefore isn’t likely to generate new buildings that would not have been built eventually. “But it does move the timetable up,” he said.

John Horowitz, a regional manager at Marcus & Millichap, a commercial brokerage, echoed Miller’s sentiment, noting that while he has seen more investor interest in buildings along the JMZ corridor, he doesn’t expect interest in areas along the L to decline.

“There’s a reason it’s in more demand than the JMZ, and I don’t think two years is long enough to flip that,” he said. [NYT] —Christopher Cameron