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Wild About Brooklyn
Developers See Investment
Value In The Outer Borough
By Amy S. Choi
| Downtown
Brooklyn, Williamsburg and Park Slope are among neighborhoods
rich with development potential. |
Once development got started in Brooklyn, nobody could stop
it.
No one wanted to.
"Development is wild in Brooklyn right now," said
Joan Bartolomeo, president of the Brooklyn Economic Development
Corp. "You see dramatic change happening even in the
small neighborhoods, whether there are new storefronts, commercial
or residential development."
The increase in development activity is partly due to overflow
from land-constrained Manhattan, both on the commercial and
residential side. But the vast majority of the interest comes
from developers who are slowly but surely recognizing the
investment value in Brooklyn.
On the retail side, for example, superstores such as Wal-Mart
and Ikea are trying desperately to find land to develop in
the borough.
"There are 2.5 million people here, and I think developers
realized that people were taking their money someplace else,"
Bartolomeo said. "I think they're now trying to keep
the money local."
Residential developers are equally eager to build, both in
downtown Brooklyn and in other neighborhoods, especially Williamsburg
and Park Slope. "You can't walk down the block without
seeing a crane or sidewalk shed, even in Park Slope, which
would have been unheard of 10 years ago because of the cost
of the land acquisition," Bartolomeo added. "But
now, the return on investment is so huge that people are willing
to spend money to be there."
Class A office space is booming as well, especially in downtown
Brooklyn, where the MetroTech project reinvigorated the area
with a dozen new buildings in the past decade. There is currently
11 million sq. ft. of total office space, of which 6 million
is class A back office space.
The Downtown Brooklyn Redevelopment Plan, adopted as a major
city initiative by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in April, now hopes
to add an additional 5 million sq. ft. of office space, 1
million sq. ft. of retail and 1 million of residential, which
totals about 1,000 new housing units.
Downtown, some residential development is coming in the form
of conversions. For example, Two Trees Management acquired
the former Board of Education headquarters for $45 million
and is renovating it into 300 condos. Some of the units will
be set aside for affordable housing.
"The goal here is to solidify downtown Brooklyn as the
region's third largest business district and to help it become
a thriving community in and of itself," said Michael
Burke, executive director of the Downtown Brooklyn Council,
an affiliate of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. "We
want to create a 24-7 atmosphere as opposed to simply an office
park."
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