On a recent sunny weekend afternoon, a small group of bed-headed twenty-somethings waited for a table outside the Greenpoint Coffee House on Franklin Avenue. New arrivals in what used to be the most overlooked and run-down section of the neighborhood, they pointed out some of the new bars and galleries and said they were comforted by the area’s budding chic.
“The hardest thing about living in this neighborhood is getting to Manhattan for work,” said Eric Marshall, a 29-year-old graphic artist. “But our remoteness works both ways; it means that it’s also hard for people to get here, so maybe this area won’t go crazy with development like other parts of Brooklyn.”
But had this group heard about the proposed rezoning of the adjacent waterfront?
“I hear they’re still fighting that one out in court, so it probably won’t start for a few years,” said Marshall.
Marshall and his friends are part of a continuing influx of new, young residents who have brought this Polish enclave a smattering of bright ethnic restaurants, bars playing alternative rock, and sharply rising rental costs. Last month, the city planning commission approved a plan to rezone a huge swath of the Williamsburg- Greenpoint waterfront, ushering in a transformative new era of development that will affect the neighborhood’s last frontier. The plans have been sent to the City Council for review, the final step in the city’s formal, seven-month public review process known as the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. The Council is expected to hold hearings this month.
Plans include a two-mile-long pedestrian esplanade to replace chain-link fences now blocking access to the waterfront. Studded along that landscaped ribbon, 20 condominiums of varying heights will be built. Plans also exist for several playgrounds, retail space at the base of those condos, and water taxi service linking Greenpoint with Midtown.
“The whole landscape of Greenpoint will change,” said Tom Le, a Fillmore broker. “This is a very exciting time, and the waterfront development will impact the whole market.”
No definitive plans exist, but brokers anticipate that over the next decade between 3,000 and 8,000 new units will be built along the waterfront in Greenpoint. All of this construction will occur in what is now the most desolate pocket of the neighborhood.
Brokers say that the waterfront construction will greatly accelerate developments already changing that no-man’s land. In the last two years, several new cafes, bars, galleries, and yoga studios opened along Franklin Avenue, the main artery of that sliver of Greenpoint. Despite the lack of convenient public transit to Manhattan, brokers say that many of their young walk-in clients are looking to rent space in that area.
“The same thing that happened along Bedford 10 years ago is happening along Franklin Avenue right now,” said Rosemarie Pawlikowski, a real estate agent for Albero Parkside Realty. “Young people and artists have begun turning those warehouses into loft spaces. That part of Greenpoint is becoming the new Williamsburg.”
It is unclear just how much waterfront development will change Greenpoint’s real estate market. According to Fillmore, the cost of one- and two-family houses has already risen by 25 percent to 38 percent, depending on whether the home is built with brick or wood.
Rental prices, however, have stabilized. Several years ago the average monthly cost of a one-bedroom apartment was about $1,400, but these days, brokers agree similar apartments are going for $1,200.
“Greenpoint is a very stable neighborhood and the biggest problem has always been the lack of transit directly to Manhattan,” said Le. “But what’s about to happen to this neighborhood is going to change the whole landscape.”