http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/re...pagewanted=all
The Other Downtown
By MICHELLE HIGGINS
November 22, 2013
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.....In October, the area’s cultural offerings expanded with, among others, the Theater for a New Audience at 262 Ashland Place, a.k.a. the Polonsky Shakespeare Center. Just down the street, Two Trees Management is developing a 32-story apartment tower atop a base that will also include space shared by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, a branch of the Brooklyn Public Library and an arts group. And a few more blocks away, at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, is the billion-dollar Barclays Center, home of the Brooklyn Nets and host to concerts and other entertainment.
None of this has been lost on developers determined to outdo one another with tall, glassy, amenity-laden high-rises. The Stahl Organization’s 388 Bridge recently claimed the title of tallest building in the borough. Topping out over the summer at 590 feet, with 53 stories, it pushed past the Brooklyner, a 51-story fully occupied rental at 111 Lawrence Street, which had held the lead since it opened in 2010.
In Brooklyn, where the landscape has long been low-rise buildings and brownstones, 388 Bridge holds a unique perch, with 360-degree views encompassing the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings and the Statue of Liberty. Two wind turbines atop the tower will power a bank of lights on the crown of the building. And superfast Fujitec elevators will whisk residents up to the rooftop terrace at 1,000 feet a minute. The building is scheduled to open early next year as a condo-rental hybrid with 378 apartments; 20 percent of the 234 rental units will be listed below market rate.
But 388 Bridge’s lofty reign won’t last long. AvalonBay Communities broke ground in August on a 57-story residential building nearby at 100 Willoughby Street. It is to have 826 rental units and amenities including a gym, a playroom, a rooftop lounge with Manhattan skyline views, an indoor dog spa and an outdoor dog run with separate areas for large and small dogs. Rental prices have not been set, said Martin Piazzola, a senior vice president of AvalonBay, “but if we were leasing today, I would expect rents to be in the $55- to $60-a-square-foot range.”
Anticipating the challenger, publicists for 388 Bridge are quick to point out that their turbine-topped tower will offer condos in addition to rentals, and thus will remain the tallest building you can own a piece of in Brooklyn.
Not as tall but still a skyline-changer, the Dermot Company’s 66 Rockwell, a 42-story glass tower near the Brooklyn Academy of Music, will also offer impressive views from a rooftop deck. Of its 326 apartments, 20 percent will be below market rate. Leasing is expected to begin this month, with studios starting at $2,400 a month, one-bedrooms at $3,300 and two-bedrooms at $4,930.
And there is more to come. Next door to H & M, United American Land has applied for permits to develop 120 luxury rental lofts with 15-foot ceilings at 248 Duffield Street, an 1893 Romanesque Revival structure known as the Offerman Building that has had a succession of retail tenants. Also, steel is going up for the first of two residential towers at the mixed-use City Point development, on the site of the former Albee Square Mall and bounded by the Fulton Mall, Gold and Willoughby Streets and Flatbush Avenue.
The project, by Acadia Realty Trust, Curbcut Urban Partners and Washington Square Partners, will include 680 rental apartments, 125 of them for moderate- and low-income residents. And in early 2014, Douglas Steiner, a developer and the chairman of Steiner Studios, expects to begin construction at 333 Schermerhorn Street on the Hub, a 52-story tower with about 750 rentals.
Mordechai Werde, an associate broker at Douglas Elliman who specializes in new development in Brooklyn, said Downtown Brooklyn was “definitely coming into its own,” adding, “People see it as a much more residential neighborhood.”
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Mike Shilshtut in Downtown Brooklyn on the roof of 189 Schermerhorn Street, where he and his wife, Sophie Zhang, recently bought a condo.
An aerial view facing east from the top of the condo-rental 388 Bridge, showing the site of the mixed-use City Point development at the old Albee Square
At 53 stories, 388 Bridge, left, is for now the tallest building in Brooklyn. Right, 66 Rockwell is a 42-story 326-unit rental.
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