The transformation of gritty Fourth Avenue — a dream of ambitious developers Shaya Boymelgreen, Isaac Katan and local boosters — hasn’t resulted in an awakening for the downmarket edge of Park Slope.
Several developments are finally coming to fruition along the Center Slope portion of the thoroughfare, including the Novo, City View Towers and an unnamed project by a new builder. But several factors may stymie further development and thwart westward expansion, including traffic congestion, environmental hazards, a zoning jumble and the end of key tax abatements that encourage developers to build, say market experts.
The city’s rezoning of 110 blocks in Park Slope in 2003 protected the neighborhood’s low-lying brownstones but allowed for buildings of up to 12 stories on the Park Slope section of Fourth Avenue. The avenue is the first major truck route east of Manhattan, stretching from the Atlantic Yards site to the Verrazano Bridge. It also represents the latest frontier for the ever-expanding boundaries of Park Slope, and a tough sell for builders hoping to cash in on Park Slope’s appeal.
One developer said construction may grind to a halt by year’s end. “With the end of the 421-a tax abatement, nothing is going to get built,” said Perry Soskin, executive vice president at the Katan Group, which co-partnered with Boymelgreen to build the Novo and is involved with several other projects in the vicinity. “If you’re not in the ground by June, you’re done. Land costs will drop 50 percent and it will stunt the potential of Fourth Avenue.”
But Steven Sharabi, who is building his first development, a 12-story condo on 1st Street just off Fourth Avenue, said that the end of the 421-a tax break will depress prices for buyers but not necessarily slow down development.
“If your costs to buy and to build are around $400 to $450 a square foot, it just means that builders will sell for $650 a square foot rather than $800,” he claimed, though prices for many new projects appear to be closer to $650 per square foot currently. “People are coming here to buy, so anyone who bought land at a favorable price will want to start selling quicker.”
Some see problems in nearby areas as obstacles. “Between the completion of the Atlantic Yards, the cleanup of the environmental hazards [in Gowanus] and a thorough rezoning,” said Hugo Salazar, broker-owner of RE/MAX at the Slope, located on Fourth Avenue, “it’s going to be at least 10 or 15 years until the grand vision becomes a reality.”
But developers have been pressing on with their plans to bring beauty to the strip of auto body shops.
Critics snidely referred to Novo as Boymelgreen Hall, likening it to a dorm. But after going on sale in January, about a third of the 151 apartments went into contract by May. Prices range from $309,000 for 562 square feet to $1.055 million for three bedrooms, two baths and 1,595 square feet.
In partnership with the Katan Group, Boymelgreen took one of the first significant steps westward when he built the low-rise Park Slope Estates on 2nd Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues in 2001. When they first hit the market, the 36 units sold for $350,000 to $695,000. The builders then completed the 46-unit City View Gardens, also on 2nd Street, in 2004.
The high-rise extension of City View Gardens, initially to be called City View Tower, will now be called the Crest. Sales for the 68 units, all one- or two-bedrooms, began last month with prices starting at $355,000, said a spokeswoman for the developer.
Montreal-based designer Andres Escobar, who created the Novo’s interior, has nearly completed Le Bleu, a boutique hotel across the street that occupies the site of a former plumbing supply store.
Le Bleu will offer 48 rooms with a restaurant on the eighth floor and a rooftop lounge. Amenities include ergonomic beds, custom furniture and 42-inch plasma screen televisions. The hotel is scheduled to open this summer; the rates will range from $200 to $300 a night. The hotel has a glass and steel design and views of the Statue of Liberty and Lower Manhattan.
Ocean View Towers, an L-shaped, 59-unit condo on Fourth Avenue and 7th Street, will wrap around a corner walkup whose owner refused to sell. And controversial architect Robert Scarano is involved with two projects on Fourth Avenue, one at Carroll Street and the other at 12th Street.
Another project, 410 Fourth Avenue, a 12-story, 59-unit building, will have 30 one-bedroom apartments, 24 two-bedrooms and five three-bedrooms ranging in size from 680 to 1,300 square feet. It is currently in the early stages of construction.
For Sharabi’s unnamed development at 255 1st Street, architect Steven Kratchman attempted to recall the look of brownstones with bay windows. Prices for the 32 units, ranging from one to three bedrooms, will average $800 a square foot, said Sharabi.
Despite the new construction, the neighborhood hasn’t lost its industrial atmosphere. Con Edison is building a new block-long office complex between 2nd and 3rd streets, which isn’t likely to help draw the Connecticut Muffin crowd from tonier areas of the Slope. Local drivers routinely head over to Fourth Avenue, usually because it is a faster thoroughfare than other avenues to reach Flatbush Avenue and Manhattan, or points east.
Shabby walk-ups straddle the avenue alongside the auto body shops. One property, the former Parkside Auto Repair shop, sits across the street from the Novo and adjacent to a Pep Boys outlet and a Staples store. The asking price for the 100-by-100-foot commercial-zoned lot, which can support 20,000 square feet, is $3.75 million. A corner warehouse with 16,000 buildable square feet, located one block from the Whole Foods site on Third Avenue and 6th Street, is asking $5.25 million.
Build it and they will come, is the attitude of some sales agents.
“All the large building sites are spoken for,” said Ken Freeman, director of sales at Massey Knakal, which is offering several nearby building sites and touting their proximity to Whole Foods. “Then, retail will follow.”
A Holiday Inn Express recently built by Sam Chang on Union Street between Third and Fourth avenues is considered a harbinger of better times for the area.
“Old-timers who have owned their homes for decades are being pressured by family members to take advantage of the situation and are selling out, which will help bring a lot more change to the area,” said Salazar.
Demand for housing near Fourth Avenue is strong, mainly because there are few brownstone rehabs left in the most desirable areas of Park Slope.
“It was only a couple of years ago that no one wanted to come to Fifth Avenue, and now there’s trendy restaurants there,” said Lynn Donawald, principal at Donawald Realty in Park Slope. “When I started 15 years ago, Seventh Avenue was the main stomping ground in Park Slope.”
One recent weekend, Donawald held an open house at 316 2nd Street, unit 2F, accessed by private elevator. The 1,310-square-foot unit, located in the coveted P.S. 321 school district, features two terraces and a Jacuzzi. The owner, who is asking $1.125 million, figures it’s a good time to sell before the new units on Fourth Avenue flood the market, said Donawald.