It's been well established that everyone wants a piece of Gowanus even though the federal government thinks the neighborhood's notorious canal needs half a billion dollars and a decade of nurturing before it no longer poses a risk of turning all who surround it into mutant zombies. Well, not everyone is gung-ho: Developer Toll Brothers was turned off by the whole Superfund thing. But that's in the past, and today the Post's real estate section gives its trademark neighborhood-on-the-rise treatment to the areas surrounding the "lavender lake." Catch the Gowanus fever! Then see a doctor immediately.
First up is a celebration of the fledgling commercial corridor of Third Avenue, where coffee shops, bars, cafés and Park-Slope-friendly indie rock venues have sprouted all before the massive Whole Foods arrives. Third Avenue is "shaping up to be for Gowanus what Dekalb Avenue is to Fort Greene, or Bedford Avenue to Williamsburg," Katherine Dykstra writes, though lingering industrial zoning means residential development is still an anomaly. But don't worry, there's plenty of that around, too.
In Part II, Dykstra focuses on new apartment buildings popping up in Carroll Gardens and Gowanus near the banks of the canal. The spin, especially from brokers, is that Superfund status isn't shameful, it's "simply a step in the right direction." Sales traffic is picking up at completed buildings like Third + Bond (where prices were recently raised to average $710/sqft), and even the Carroll Gardens Hell Building gets a shout-out. The controversial converted copper mill's 42 condos will hit the market in spring 2012 for between $700 and $750 per square foot.
Brokers say most buyers are coming from fancier brownstone Brooklyn locations nearby, where prices tend to be 10-15 percent higher. Says one, "It's not like people are kicking our door down wanting to live in Gowanus, but when product does come on the market, it goes." Just remember to keep those windows closed when it rains.
· Go Gowanus! [NYP]
· Word on Third [NYP]
· With Cleanup Coming, Everyone Wants a Piece of Gowanus [Curbed]
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