As prices rise, Prospect Heights is no longer posh Park Slope’s poor relation, though it’s still cheaper than its tonier neighbor. Once a highly diverse slice of Brooklyn, the neighborhood has seen a hodgepodge of development styles.
Now, it’s seeing a slew of new upscale condominium and rental development. As well, it appears Prospect Heights will have to absorb an additional 7,000 apartments as part of developer Bruce Ratner’s plan to build a basketball arena and residential and commercial complex on 22 acres in its northwestern corner.
The neighborhood, then, has definitely bounced back from a depressed period in the 1960s and 1970s, partly because of an overflow of residents from ritzier Park Slope.
“You’re seeing a lot of folks outpriced in Park Slope moving into Prospect Heights,” said Cynthia Acevedo, an associate broker with Fillmore Real Estate who launched her real estate career in the neighborhood five years ago. “Or rather, they have a Park Slope budget, but it’s a question of the lack of Park Slope inventory.”
Inventory won’t be a problem in Prospect Heights. There are at least 20 new residential developments planned for the coming years (see map and chart; link at bottom). Many may benefit from an influx of those priced out of the Manhattan market, as well as the arrival of those from other Brooklyn neighborhoods looking to upgrade their housing.
Sales at the Washington, a brand-new, upscale 39-unit condominium development at 35 Underhill Avenue, are running about $575 a square foot, said Brendan Aguayo, head of business development at Aguayo & Huebener Realty Group. Typical prices for comparable apartments in Park Slope are $700 to $800 a square foot.
Prices in Prospect Heights have been steadily appreciating, said Peggy Aguayo, co-owner of Aguayo & Huebener (and Brendan’s mother). Back in 1986, she sold entire apartment buildings in Prospect Heights for about $500,000, or the current price of a nice one-bedroom apartment.
According to Fillmore Real Estate, a one-bedroom cooperative apartment of approximately 700 square feet ranges from $290,000 to $450,000, while a two-bedroom, two-bath co-op of about 1,500 square feet ranges from $625,000 to $720,000.
That means Prospect Heights is quietly gaining on Park Slope. And soon there will be a whole new group of condominiums to test the market, much of them being developed in old industrial buildings on Dean and Pacific streets. However, there is also some new construction taking place, such as the Washington, on the market almost a year.
“It has 39 units, and we have sold out without having one open house yet 27 of them from plan,” Peggy Aguayo said. “It shows the whole neighborhood has gone through an incredible transition. It has grown tremendously.”
The Washington, which has the sort of high-end finishes such as high ceilings, oak floors, and cherry custom cabinets, that might be found in Manhattan, is only the tip of the iceberg.
Another development starting sales in the next year or so will be Pacific Blue at 925-935 Pacific Street, a conglomeration of several buildings containing a total of about 70 to 90 units, Brendan Aguayo said.
“These are going to be marketed as a new lifestyle, not really as separate buildings,” he said. “Each resident will get a Pacific Blue card, and they’ll be able to enter each building to take advantage of amenities. In one building will be a screening room, in another a gym, in another a business center, and the fourth will have a kids’ playroom.”
The developer of Pacific Blue, Supreme Builders, is also doing a 16-story glass tower at 540 Saint Marks Avenue one of the first glass structures in Brooklyn.
Architect Richard Meier is also leaving his mark on Prospect Heights with a glass tower, a reflection of his Perry Street high-rises in Manhattan. The 15-story building at 17 Eastern Parkway will have 119 units and is being developed by Mario Procida of Seventeen Development LLC.
“Park Slope is really gone,” Brendan Aguayo said of the land market, a major consideration for developers. “Prospect Heights is really the last place you’re going to go to find land. There are plenty of lots available; a lot of auto body shops. And the lot sizes are larger 150-by-100-foot lots.”
Land prices are ranging from about $100 to $150 a buildable foot, Aguayo said.
Eric Brody, a developer and principal of the Brody Group, said the area east of Washington Avenue, which was once a solid line of demarcation, has become a hotbed of development, bleeding into Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Still, much of the land was snapped up by real estate professionals about a year and a half ago, though there are some landowners looking for developer consultants to help them develop, he said.
“It’s kind of the second generation of land sales,” Brody said. “Either people are going to try to flip them, or it’s already to the end-user, the developer.”
It remains to be seen how some of this contemporary new construction will blend in with the rest of Prospect Heights, many streets of which are lined with brownstone and limestone and brick townhouses. There are even some carriage houses and mansions.
Some of those beautiful homes, nestled among amenities like the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Botanical Gardens and the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, not to mention the 526-acre Prospect Park, are still a deal for homebuyers, brokers say. While prices have risen dramatically in the past four years, two-family to four-family homes can be found for $1.5 million, Acevedo said, hundreds of thousands of dollars less than in Park Slope.
And as retail springs up on Vanderbilt and Washington avenues, so residents no longer have to make the haul over to Seventh Avenue in Park Slope, the transportation options, with easy access to subway and bus lines, make Prospect Heights an easy sell.
“Prospect Heights is a really popular area,” Acevedo said. “There has to be double or triple the number of real estate offices along Washington Avenue than when I started selling there five years ago.”