[A new rendering video from the marketing team. As if they really need it.]
The newest batch of condos rising in Brooklyn Bridge Park barely has a physical structure, but the still non-existent units are selling very fast, and at very high pricesrecord-setting prices in fact. The Journal reports that a four-bedroom penthouse in Pierhouse, currently being constructed beside Pier 1 in the waterfront park, went into contract for $11.18 million, and if it closes for that price, it will be the most expensive condo ever sold in the borough.
More than 40 of the development's 108 units have been spoken for (and about half of those were taken by people who already live in the area), and they are selling for an average for $1,800 per square footalso a record number for Brooklyn. The project has been so well-received that developer Toll Brothers has actually raised prices six times since sales launched 10 weeks ago.
The higher values of the apartments will likely translate into higher revenues for the parkthe Journal says that even before prices were raised, by mid-2016, "each apartment will pay an average of about $500 in lease payments and more than $2,200 in property taxes a month to support the park"but the success of the building has park advocates wondering if the city didn't undervalue the park land to begin with.
Toll Brothers paid the city $42.5 million in 2012 for a 97-year lease of the land where Pierhouse is rising. In turn, the condos fund the upkeep of Brooklyn Bridge Park through fees and property taxes. This method of funding has been opposed by parks advocates from the get-go, and now that the land is making bank for the developer, advocates argue that it shouldn't have been used for housing at all. The president of the nonprofit Project for Public Spaces thinks that had there not been a need to build places for people to live, the park "could have been designed to serve 'people who live in inner Brooklyn,'" which is a statement that could use some explanation, but the Journal gives none.
Pierhouse consists of two buildings, a four-story building and a 10-story one that includes a 192-room hotel, and construction should wrap up sometime next year. The next box of condos will rise north of Pierhouse on a site a John Street (a developer was recently selected), and following that, two more buildings are expected to be built on sites beside Pier 6 near Atlantic Avenue. Parks advocates and a few local politicians are trying to get the mayor to change this, but de Blasio has supported the funded-by-condos plan since the start and he's only reiterated that opinion.
· Brooklyn Park Condos Sizzle [WSJ]
· All Pierhouse coverage [Curbed]
· De Blasio Asked to Halt Possible Residential Towers at Pier 6 [Curbed]
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