February, 2008 – Sold $4,250,000
December, 2011 – Sold $3,500,000
October, 2014 – Listed $6,350,000
This week’s Digs Watch takes us to the former Jehovah’s Witnesses printing and shipping facility turned amenity-rich Brooklyn waterfront condo behemoth One Brooklyn Bridge Park. The building is located on the southwestern fringe of Brooklyn Heights, and as the name suggests, in the middle of the amazing new neighborhood resource, Brooklyn Bridge Park. Recently put on the market here is Unit 205, an enormous 4br/4ba lofty duplex with generous room sizes, a wide open living space, a large balcony and awesome windows that all seem to face the water and the lower Manhattan skyline. The unfortunate souls who picked up this unit from the developer in early 2008, just as the stock market was beginning its precipitous decline from its 2007 peaks (well, how unfortunate could they really be if they paid $4.25MM for an apartment?), took a bath on their late 2011 sale just as the City’s real estate market was beginning its dramatic comeback from the down market of the Great Recession. The savvy buyers who capitalized on the sellers’ misfortune are now looking to make a profit of just under $3MM at the current list price (a little over 80%) after just three years of ownership and no discernable material improvements (other than adding a giant table to the kitchen island). It is indisputably an unbelievable apartment, except that it’s on the 2nd floor of a building that is at least a mile from the nearest subway line. But in my opinion, if you’re moving to Brooklyn, you’re kind of missing the point by moving to this building, which is essentially a luxurious self-contained enclave with an imposing barrier isolating it from Brooklyn Heights (you may have heard of the BQE???) and none of the neighborhood identity that makes urban living in so many Brooklyn areas so desirable.
Given where prices of luxury condos are in prime Brooklyn neighborhoods, the just under $1,700/sf price is not wildly unreasonable, but I do think it is a bit high. However, if you take a look at this unit in the same building , it looks like a relative bargain…
