“With a record amount of commercial real-estate debt coming due, some of the country’s biggest property developers have become the latest to go hat-in-hand to the government for assistance. They’re warning policymakers that thousands of office complexes, hotels, shopping centers and other commercial buildings are headed into defaults, foreclosures and bankruptcies. The reason: according to […]

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Folks who live in a rent-stabilized building owned by one of the most high-profile developers in Brooklyn are finding a hot shower hard to come by nowadays, according to a press release sent out last night by Councilmember Letitia James’s office. Tenants in 25 Lafayette Avenue, in the BAM Cultural District, say that the gas […]

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As we noted this morning on Curbed, developer Billy Stein (pictured here) made a long presentation to Carroll Gardens residents attending the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association meeting last night. Mr. Stein brought a rendering of the redesigned building at 360 Smith, whose early version we dubbed the Heavy Metal Building, but did not want any […]

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Look for some significant discussion of that controversial building at 360 Smith Street tonight as developer Billy Stein presents the plans to residents at the monthly meeting of the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association (CGNA). According to Tom Gray, who is Council Member Bill de Blasio‘s District Manager and who has sent out word of the […]

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Check out the new City Limits for an interesting story on the trend that defines mega-projects in Brooklyn: the recruitment of advocacy groups and community development corporations by developers with promises of affordable housing. Atlantic Yards and developer Bruce Ratner’s virtual partnership with ACORN is the Gold Standard and one which the developers of the […]

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There are a few more details on that condo project that is going to be developed in Gowanus by the Hudson Companies, which built the 33-story J Condos in Dumbo. Last month, we noted the sale of the property at 3rd Street and Bond for $7.75 million. The Brooklyn Eagle reported yesterday that the developer […]

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If you read GL or our work over at Curbed, you know we’ve paid a lot of attention to the Toll Brothers developments on Kent Avenue. (We also have noted their efforts in Gowanus, but those are still in the planning and lobbying stage.) Why the Toll Brothers? Partly because we’re fascinated by the urban […]

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Look for a new development to start rising soon at the corner of Third and Bond Streets in Carroll Gardens/Gowanus. The corner lot, which involves four different properties, recently sold to The Hudson Companies for $7.75 million. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because it is the same company that developed the J Condo in […]

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One begins to get the sense that this is not a good time to be an architect who can be used as the poster boy for everything that is wrong with Brooklyn development. When a Carroll Gardens resident leading the charge against the controversial Heavy Metal Big Red Brick Building on Smith Street passed along […]

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No, not the bridge & tunnel kind of toll. This kind of Toll. A Gowanus resident sent along this photo of signage that has appeared on Bond Street and First Street, which would be close to the epicenter of the roughly 400-unit luxe development the Toll Brothers would like to build on the shores of […]

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In April, Community Board 6 voted to ask the Department of Buildings to withhold the Certificate of Occupancy for Boymelgreen Developers’ Novo Park Slope building because the developer hadn’t followed through on making, or paying for, nearly $1.6 million in repairs to J.J. Byrne Park on Fifth Avenue. The repairs were needed because the developer […]

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[Photo courtesy of INSIJS/flickr] The Toll Brothers and Northside Piers have had some, um, labor issues this week as indicated by the infestation of huge blow-up rats on Kent Avenue. Blogger INSIJS captured a few shots of the rats and posted them in a flickr album in addition to posting about them. We have to […]

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We were fascinated by this My9 News investigative report the other night about Brooklyn developer Mendel Brach and his condo project on Spencer Street in Bed-Stuy. (We located it via IMBY’s post.) So, we were interested to find that someone had posted it on YouTube. If you haven’t seen it, it’s absolutely worth a viewing. […]

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