Condos, not Rentals, at Fourth & Prospect

 


Condos coming here soon


Last we'd heard the Rabsky Group was planning a rental building at Fourth & Prospect, but now, according to The Real Deal, the site - 575-81 Fourth & 189-95 Prospect - has been bought by The Daten Group, and condos are in the works:

The Daten Group agreed to pay $24 million for six adjacent, mixed-use buildings – four at 575-581 Fourth Avenue and two at 189-195 Prospect Avenue, said Craig Rosenman, director of acquisitions at Daten. 
The 65-unit, 80,000-square-foot structure will rise 12 stories on Fourth Avenue and five stories on Prospect Avenue, Rosenman said. 
Little more than half a year ago, Rabsky, a notoriously private Williamsburg-based development firm led by Simon Dushinsky, was gearing up for its own project on the site. Rabsky paid a combined $15.4 million for the buildings in two separate deals, in November and April, records show. Then, Dushinsky filed plans for a new, 129-unit rental building and sought demolition permits. 

...“In a crowded rental market, this will be one of the few condo buildings along that corridor,” said Rosenman, adding that he expects the average price for the condos will be north of $1,250 per square foot.

The Daten Group are planning for fewer units than Dushinsky had intended, but the size of the building will be about the same.

This change seems to confirm reports of a development switch from rental to condo, to meet the demand for for-sale units in an"inventory-starved borough."

Earlier on Prospect:
Fischer Building at Fourth & Prospect
Excellent Location & Views
Rooms with a View
Following Up (1)

Fourth & Prospect

A wasted billboard opportunity.  A couple of crusties with requisite pitbulls were trying (unsuccessfully) to hitch a ride on Prospect as I passed by.  

Last August the Real Deal reported that the Daten Group were in contract to buy a group of adjacent properties at Fourth & Prospect from the Rabsky Group.  Rabsky purchased the properties earlier in the year for $15.4 million, & was set to flip them for $24 million.  With Daten's purchase, plans for development were to switch from rental to condo, with architects Kutnicki Bernstein to replace Karl Fischer.  According to The Real Deal, Daten planned to begin demolition "in the next two months."

Summer, fall & winter passed, and the properties at 575-81 Fourth & 189-195 Prospect, purchased by Daten with demolition already approved, are still standing.  Construction plans filed by Rabsky were never approved, and no new plans have been been filed by Daten.  A release of mortgage filed last month may bring some action.

So many of our city landscapes seem to exist in limbo.  The leveled lots, the closed stores, the vacant houses, doors ajar, posted with rodent bait & demolition signs.  Buildings half-demolished, or buildings half-complete, frozen by Stop Work Orders.   They're at every turn.

More of Same on Fourth: SWO and corner sale

There's an SWO posted at 581 Fourth, the vast construction site at Fourth & Prospect Avenues.  The date is a little unclear, either the 21st or 24th April, and strangely, there's no record of the SWO on the DOB website.  It could be related to complaints of excavation undermining an adjacent building.  The site was flipped by the Rabsky Group to the Daten Group in 2015, and plans switched from rental to condo units.  No inclusionary housing here.

At the northern end of the Fourth Avenue block, at 561, a corner building and adjacent property on 16th - a pretty looking carriage house - are listed for sale for $4,600,000 with "lots of opportunity for additional development."  The storefronts at 561 and 563 have been shuttered for several years.

Demo Time at Fourth & Prospect

When I walked along Fourth on marathon day a group of properties at Prospect were still awaiting demolition.  They'd been flipped by the Rabsky Group to Daten over a year ago, for a ten million dollar profit, and building plans had switched from rental to condo.  In April '16 Daten had announced that the buildings would be demolished by June but summer passed, and the buildings still stood empty.  There'd been some asbestos removal in the summer, with facades of building on the Prospect Avenue side partially removed, but not much else had happened. Construction (or destruction) limbo had struck again.

Today I learned that demolition was really underway, and before it got dark I wandered over to take a look.  The light was too dim to take halfway-decent shots, but I peered through the construction fence windows (a vaguely obscene activity) to see what was happening.

Behold the stairs to nowhere, and a giant field of rubble.  Before and after shots on Prospect Avenue.

The frame buildings on the Fourth Avenue side are gone too.  Only the corner building & this one on Prospect (below left) are still standing.

I have about 2,539 posts about Prospect Avenue. Here are a few of the ones that concern this corner

Dark Clouds Ahead

Fourth and Prospect

Sitting on Fourth

Condos, not Rentals, at Fourth & Prospect

Fischer Building at Fourth & Prospect

Following Up (1)

A Familiar Tale on Fourth

Coming Soon!

Curbed just ran a piece on new apartments coming on the market this spring.  Three of them are nearby.  119 units.  No inclusionary housing.

The Luna (Happy Living Development), at 225 9th Street, is just off Fourth, just down from the old Catene's deli. Thirty nine units, with amenities that include "a lounge, pet spa, outdoor terrace, and kid’s room."

575 Fourth (Daten Group), nestling up to the Prospect Expressway, with 70 apartments.

"There’s a ground-floor “backyard” with seating and a dog run, and a roof deck with its own private “villas” for residents."

This one's been in the works since 2015, with a change in developer along the way.

The Bentyn (Happy Living again!), at 488 Fourth, with ten apartments on offer, appears to be the closest to completion.

"Uniquely situated where the vibrant community of Gowanus and the classic beauty of Park Slope converge, Bentyn marries clean contemporary aesthetics with thoughtful, curated finishes."

You decide.

To heighten that feeling of "Brooklyn living from a fresh perspective,"the rendering on the Bentyn website has added a cornice and a snappy new entrance to the building next door (at left), and removed its current entrance along with the awning.  And sadly no glimpse of Danny's.