Clinton Hill Development

[Derek2k3]

I think it's a little ridiculous sticking all projects for an entire borough in one thread. Maybe it should be broken down by neighborhoods like the Sheepshead Bay and Williamsburg threads. Anyway, thought I'd start this Clinton Hill thread and see how it goes.


Recent article about Clinton Hill from the New York Times.

LIVING IN | CLINTON HILL
Into the Big Leagues, With Prices to Match

By SUZANNE HAMLIN

Published: January 9, 2005

SANDWICHED between Fort Greene and Bedford-Stuyvesant, Clinton Hill in Brooklyn might just be the quintessence of urban living in New York City. It is affluent and not so, seedy and grand, ethnically diverse, a magnet for artists, musicians and filmmakers, and so rich in architectural style that even now, with escalating property prices, a new group of buyers is prowling its landmarked blocks in hopes of finding an overlooked gem.

"Like the rest of brownstone Brooklyn, we've had a huge surge of buyers this past year, particularly from Manhattan," said Merele Williams-Adkins, a broker with the Corcoran Group who lives in Clinton Hill with her husband, Terry Adkins, a sculptor and a professor in the graduate school of design at the University of Pennsylvania, and their two children.

One-time Manhattan residents, the Adkins moved to Clinton Hill in 1995 from the East Village, and bought a Classic Six co-op for $155,000. They sold it in 2001 for $577,000, and bought, for $610,000, a 4,000-square-foot brownstone on Grand Avenue, a property that is probably worth well over $1 million today.

However, based on Corcoran's just-released year-end report, "well over a million" might be a low-ball figure for a substantial property in this part of Brooklyn. According to the report, the rise in the combined prices for condos, co-ops and town houses, from 2003 to 2004, in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill averaged 35 percent. For town houses alone, the increase was 59 percent.

Once considered "secondary neighborhoods," Fort Greene and Clinton Hill have traditionally been the fallback choice for buyers shut out by prices in Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Park Slope (and, more recently, Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill). And while they may be lumped together by brokers, the neighborhoods can no longer be considered the housing equivalent of a brand-name warehouse sale.

Roslyn Huebener, the co-owner of Aguayo & Huebener, a Brooklyn real estate firm, just closed on her "retirement house," which cost $2.15 million and faces Fort Greene Park.

"But then in 1985, people thought I was crazy when I bought five houses in Clinton Hill for $225,000 each," she said.

Both neighborhoods can claim proximity to the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Fort Greene Park, which was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and is midway through a restoration. But Clinton Hill is farther away from the commercial streets of downtown Brooklyn, making it, to many of its residents, the better choice. It is also farther removed from mass-transit hubs, although street parking, fiercely contested in Fort Greene, is somewhat easier in Clinton Hill.

Centered on the five square blocks of Pratt Institute, the venerable art and design school founded by Charles Pratt in 1887, Clinton Hill today seems very much like the thoughtfully planned community it was intended to be when it was conceived almost 170 years ago.

Originally a large parcel of land owned by the Dutch, Clinton Hill became a neighborhood in the 1800's, a rural retreat for some of New York's most prominent industrialists, who built their imposing mansions along Washington and Clinton Avenues. In 1875, Charles Pratt, an oil executive and philanthropist, built a mansion on Clinton Avenue, followed by one for each of his four sons as they married. Subsequent neighbors included the Bristols (of the Bristol-Myers company) and the Underwoods (of typewriter fame).

These grand properties, looking today much as they did then, rarely change hands, although one of the grandest, the 12,000-square-foot mansion built by the Pfizer family at 280 Washington Avenue, is expected to come onto the market in early February, priced at $3,595,000, according to Paula Hollins, the listing broker at Corcoran.

Row houses followed on the surrounding streets, built in an eccentric smorgasbord of styles, something for every fantasy and taste. Along with Victorian brownstones and limestones, there are block after block of Italianate town houses, imposing Romanesque properties, graceful antebellum frame houses and possibly the greatest collection of carriage houses in the city.

Apartment houses were built beginning in the early 1900's through the 1940's, many to house families connected to the nearby Brooklyn Navy Yard. In 1954, Robert Moses razed a five-block area for urban renewal, and in the 1950's and 1960's, many one-family houses became rooming houses.

By 1979, when Naida McSherry bought a "darling house on St. James Place for $43,000," Clinton Hill was considered well off the map.

"Almost every house was still full of original details but neglected," she said. "Not because the owners didn't care, but because they didn't have the money to fix them up."

Once a home furnishings designer who moved from Greenwich Village to Brooklyn seeking space, Ms. McSherry became so enamored of Clinton Hill that she became a real estate broker, retiring last year after 25 years in the business.

Ms. McSherry said the one thing she tried not to do as a broker was sell to investors.

"I wanted people who bought here to live here," she said, "and to get involved in the neighborhood."

Clinton Hill does not have a huge supply of housing on the market. Rentals, in two- and three-family houses, are filled almost immediately by Pratt students and faculty members.

In the last year, condos, co-ops and houses in the $900,000 to $1.5 million range have sold, often with full-price offers or above, within a couple of days of coming on the market.

In the early part of the 20th century, Italian-American families made up the largest part of Clinton Hill's population, which has expanded today into a polyglot community that includes Caribbean immigrants, blacks and Hispanics.

Hundreds of often vibrantly plumed Pratt students are also highly visible members of the community, as are artists, designers, architects, writers and photographers drawn by the physical beauty, quirkiness, rough edges and energy in the neighborhood, and the quality most residents cite as Clinton Hill's most precious - its diversity.

There is no problem with where to hang out in Clinton Hill anymore. Both Fulton Street and the once-seedy Myrtle Avenue are filling up fast with take-out places, casual restaurants and shops. In the middle of it all is the Pratt Institute, which in the last decade under its president, Thomas F. Schutte, has notably increased its community involvement, always a hallmark of the school.

Clinton Hill's weak spot has always been its underperforming elementary and high schools, and many parents send their children to private, alternative or parochial schools.

St. Joseph's College, headquartered on Clinton Avenue, houses the Dillon Child Study Center, which has highly sought-after preschool and kindergarten programs. And Public School 11, because of increased involvement by parents, is coming on strong.

"It is thrilling to watch," Ms. McSherry said. "It used to be that young people would move here, but then they would have children, and as soon as they were old enough for grade school, they'd pack up and leave."

Local preservationists are keeping an eye on other changes.

"All we fear now is the developers," said Sharon Barnes, a resident of Clinton Hill since 1986. She is co-chairwoman of the Landmarks Preservation Committee of the Society for Clinton Hill, a community group that monitors major condo conversions and new high-rises, many of which, she says, seem to go up overnight, in spite of opposition.

Not all of Clinton Hill is landmarked. Some blocks, identified by their brown street signs, are protected from high-rise development, while others, not yet designated, are open to change. Besides changing the landscape, many in the community feel that real estate prices will drive out many less-affluent residents.

"Clinton Hill has been one of the few communities in New York City to maintain its level of racial and economic diversity," said Ron Schiffman, a professor at the graduate center for planning and the environment at Pratt. For 42 years an expert on community development, Professor Schiffman was instrumental, with Robert F. Kennedy, in forming the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, still considered a model for community development.

"Watchdogs are needed, though," he said. "What is Clinton Hill's greatest strength, its diversity, may now be its most vulnerable aspect."


Attatched is the map that came with the article and some of my photos. The neighborhood is bounded by Clinton, Flushing, Atlantic, and Classon Avenue (though I stretch it to Bedford Avenue)

[Derek2k3]

Project # 1

The Kent
970 Kent Avenue
9 stories 126 feet (Renovation + 2 story addition)
Elissa Winzelberg Architect
Dev-970 Kent Avenue Associates
Residential Condominium
103 units 146,342 Sq. Ft.
Under Construction 2004-2005




Fancy-pants real estate
Ex-undie factory goes condo

BY HUGH SON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Work is underway to turn a Clinton Hill building where workers once made underwear into a tony condominium with views of Manhattan.

Some observers believe the conversion of the former Kaiser Underwear factory at 970 Kent Ave. marks the arrival of the neighborhood as a coveted residential area.

Each of the loft-style apartments will boast a wall of large windows - some of which have city views - and will sell for between $350,000 and $500,000, said Highlyann Krasnow of the Developers Group, which is handling sales for the project.

"You'll have amazing windows that run throughout the full length of the room," Krasnow said.

"This building is interesting because there aren't very many condo conversions in Clinton Hill at all - because it's a landmarked district, there's not very much new construction," she added.

Ground-floor apartments in the Kent building will have private patios, and penthouse units will have terraces, said architect and developer Elissa Winzelberg.

"They're fabulous apartments with really high ceilings," said Winzelberg, who explained that she designed the apartments to be especially well-lit because she felt some loft apartments tended to have poor natural lighting. The developers added a duplex penthouse level to the seven-story building, which was built in 1915 and used by the underwear manufacturers until the 1970s, said Winzelberg.

She expects The Kent - which will have apartments ranging from 941 to 1,327 square feet - to be finished toward the end of the year, though apartments are for sale now.

Other amenities in the 103-unit building will include a private courtyard with a running track and a full-time doorman.

The Kent conversion comes amidst a boom in real estate values in Clinton Hill, said Suzanne DeBrango, a real estate agent at Brooklyn Properties' Fort Greene office.

"Prices are a bit lower compared to Park Slope, which is a long-established residential neighborhood," DeBrango said, "but they are coming up so fast that the difference is almost negligible."
The average brownstone in the neighborhood now costs about $1.1 million, and a one-bedroom costs between $220,000 and $350,000, DeBrango said.

Originally published on July 22, 2004

Marketers:
http://www.thedevelopersgroup.com/bu...ildingid=1017&

[Derek2k3]

Projects #2 & 3

The Spencer I
209 Spencer Street
9 stories 85 feet
Bricolage Designs
16 units 186,400 Sq. Ft.
Under Construction 2003-Early 2005


The Spencer II
201 Spencer Street
9 stories 85 feet
Bricolage Designs
18 units 24,533 Sq. Ft
Under Construction 2003-Early 2005



http://www.thedevelopersgroup.com/bu...uildingid=1005

The Spencer
201 Spencer St Brooklyn, NY 11205
The Spencer is one of the first new residential buildings in the historically designated area of Clinton Hill, and is a benchmark in excellence for all that will follow. The dramatic pre-war façade invites you into luxuriously appointed loft-like one-bedroom and duplex units where construction and amenities are of the highest standard. Each unit comes complete with private outdoor space, a garden, balcony, terrace or private roof deck. All residences will also have use of the common roof deck with panoramic NYC skyline views.

Amenities
Keyed elevators to each unit
Oversized windows

Outdoor space for every unit
Common roof deck with amazing NYC skyline views

Central air & heat(HVAC)
Wide plank hardwood floors

Exposed brick
Stainless steel appliances

Granite kitchen countertops
Maple kitchen cabinets

Blue stone baths


There's also a thread here:
http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/sh...ighlight=11205

[Gulcrapek]

I didn't realize there was a second Spencer. The last time I was there the only facade on it was stone quoining, so I didn't know it was related.

[Derek2k3]

Project #4

383 Willoughby Avenue
3/4 stories 29 feet
Scarano & Associates
Commercial
5,000 Sq. Ft.
Completed 2003


http://www.scaranoarchitects.com/

383 Willoughby Avenue

This project is located in a commercial district at the intersection of Bedford and Willoughby Avenues in Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.

The location of the project next to a gas station made the building visible from the intersection, this allowed the design to emphasize cantilevered elements above the entrance and glass turning the corner. The elevations created in the Bauhaus style give a clean look in contrast to the existing masonry homes in the neighborhood.

The elevation, composed in relation to the existing setback of the neighboring building, continued the street wall context as a major element.
At three stories with a mezzanine and roof terrace at the mezzanine level. The buildings scale is not readily apparent.

The structure is of concrete masonry units for its perimeter walls and steel beams for the cantilevered portion on the street elevation. Floor assemblies of steel beams and concrete decks at the parking level and light gauge metal joists on the upper floors complete the structure.

The program included a full cellar for storage, parking for the owner's trucks and personal vehicles and offices.

[Gulcrapek]

Wow... that one didn't turn out too nice.

[Derek2k3]

Project #5

902-908 Bedford Avenue
9 stories 86 feet
Bricolage Designs
Dev-Zilberman Henry
Residential Rental
18 units 59,000 Sq. Ft.
Completed Fall 2004




http://www.rentclintonhill.com/

902-908 Bedford Avenue is a new 44-unit rental building located in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn.

The building is designed to meet the needs of students and faculty members who are looking for value in a comfortable living environment.

If you are interested in finding out more about availabilities,
Please contact us at: (718) - 596 - 8856 or
Email us at: rentclintonhill@hotmail.com

[Archit_K]

Those are some incredible pictures Derek2k3.

[Derek2k3]

^Thanks.

Project # 6


189-191 Franklin Avenue
Weiss Sandor
Dev-Kohn Sol
8 stories 80 feet
Residential Rental
16 units 26,650 Sq. Ft.
Completed Late 2004

[Derek2k3]

Project # 7

Vincent A. Stabile Hall
203 Emerson Place
5/6 stories 55 feet
Pasanella+Klein, Stolzman+Berg Architects
Dev-Pratt Institute
Dormitory
128 units 57,041 Sq. Ft.
$13,000,000
Completed July 1997-late 1999


Paul Warchol

From Archidose
http://www.archidose.org/Nov01/111201.html

Open since late 1999, Pratt Institute's Stabile Hall in Brooklyn, New York, designed by Pasanella+Klein, Stolzman+Berg Architects of New York City, is an atypical university dormitory. Accommodating approximately 220 freshman art and architecture students, the hall contains studio and gallery spaces, in addition to the typical dorm rooms and common areas.

Utilizing brick and translucent panels to differentiate functions and volumes, the building's scale is thereby reduced and is less severe than a monolithic shell might have been. The irregular openings and regular rhythm of the brick volumes (at left) is reminiscent of Louis I. Kahn's work, while the light volume sheathed in translucent panels conveys an appreciation of contemporary European architecture.

The multi-level lobby uses generous glazing and an unobtrusive pedestrian bridge to allow sunlight to fill the space. This space, along with the single-loaded corridors of the dorm floors, give the circulation a more prominent role than is typically afforded with this building type.

Unlike Morphosis' Graduate House in Toronto, Canada, Stabile Hall does not need to relate to an urban context. Instead it is required to fit the surrounding campus of Pratt's Brooklyn campus, which it does admirably both in materials and massing. The red brick relates to existing buildings dating back over 100 years, while the smaller, yet mainly opaque, brick volumes help to reduce the scale of the dorm. Finally, it is the panels of the majority of the exterior surface that enable the building to look ahead while appreciating the past.


http://www.pksb.com/
Stabile Hall
Pratt Institute/Brooklyn, NY

PKSB won a design competition for its innovative program that integrates studio spaces and a gallery with residential areas. The primary circulation corridor is lined by transparent, semi-private lounges that offer opportunities for students to meet and collaborate. A large gallery above the main entrance enables students to curate exhibits or host artists-in-residence, fostering a sense of connection with the school and the professional world. On the outside, the building creates a transition between tree-filled yards and the surrounding urban environment. A series of five-story pavilions contain the dormitory rooms that look out over the courtyards that are created between them.

AIA New York Chapter Design Award
Architecture Magazine P/A Award Citation

Attatched photography below by Paul Warchol

[Archit_K]

Hanrahan Meyers Architects
135 West 20th Street, #300
New York, NY 10011
Phone: 212.989.6026
Fax: 212.255.3776
http://hanrahanmeyers.com/

Project: Pratt Design Center
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Client Pratt Institute
Size 8,000 s.f. of new construction; 100,000s.f. of renovation

Hanrahan Meyers Architects are designing a new Pratt Design Center Entrance Pavilion to join the existing Pratt Studios and Steuben Hall together as a single entity on the main campus of Pratt Institute. The new Entrance Pavilion will bring the two buildings together as one and establish a single identity for the Design Center. The Entrance Pavilion will symbolize the forward thinking and creativity of design education at Pratt Institute, which has an international reputation for design.

Pratt Studios and Steuben Hall house the principal design programs for the School of Art and Design. Both buildings will also be renovated to house all design programs of Pratt Institute.

[Archit_K]

Here are some sexy renderings off the AIANY website http://www.aiany.org/designawards/2...inners_proj.htm. Hanrahan Meyers Architects recieved an AIA 2004 Design Award.

[Archit_K]

I hope this turn out better then the renderings. Please comment on my pictures.

[Archit_K]

Caroline Ladd Pratt House
229 Clinton Avenue, Clinton Hill
Sat: tours at 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, max 15 at a time
Architect: Babb, Cook & Willard, 1898
Services: restrooms available
One of Brooklyn's finest private residences, this Georgian Revival mansion is now inhabited by the president of Pratt Institute.
subway: G to Clinton-Washington
bus: B38

[Archit_K]

REGIONAL MARKET / BROOKLYN An Anchor Bookstore for a College and Its Neighborhood
Jonathan Fickies for The New York Times
Donald Condrey will manage PrattStore, which replaces a cramped bookstore situated in a basement.

By SUZANNE HAMLIN

Published: January 12, 2005


PrattStore is determined to be than just another college bookstore. Housed in a sleek contemporary building with large glass windows, the new art-and-design store, which will open this month on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn, has been purposely built to serve both town and gown.

The store, a 15,000-square-foot soaring space, is a warehouse of books, publications and tools for every category of the arts. It combines bits of art shops and bookstores like Barnes & Noble, Rizzoli, MoMA, Pearl Paint and the Harvard Coop, all together in a wide-open merchandise display.

"There is nothing else quite like it anywhere in the country," said Thomas F. Schutte, the president of Pratt Institute, the nation's oldest and largest art and design school. "Obviously, it will be a tremendous resource for our students but, because of its location, for the community as well."

Community in this case is a broad concept. Pratt, which has more than 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students and more than 800 faculty members, is on 25 acres in the middle of Clinton Hill. Founded in 1887 by Charles Pratt, an oil industrialist and philanthropist, who built his own home nearby, Pratt's 19th-century founding precepts - an ideal merging of art and commerce -seem much in evidence today.

The highly visible new PrattStore, built on a corner of the Pratt campus on part of a school parking lot, is at Emerson Place and Myrtle Avenue, a low-rise commercial thoroughfare for both traffic and pedestrians that wends through Brooklyn's multiethnic, mixed-economic residential neighborhoods of Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Bedford-Stuyvesant. While no hard figures exist, these high-density areas have a relatively high share of artists, sculptors, photographers, filmmakers and architects as residents.

For them, PrattStore may become a regular shopping destination. Revenue for the store's first fiscal year, July 2005 through June 2006, is projected at $3 million. "Every penny of the net profits will flow directly back into Pratt operations," said Dr. Schutte, who has a doctorate in business administration.

Constructed for $2.2 million and designed by the architect Richard Scherr, director of facilities planning and design at Pratt, the pale gray all-steel store was created from prefabricated components supplied by Butler Manufacturing of Kansas City, Mo., a leading manufacturer of pre-engineered metal building systems.

The building's distinctive features include a striking red canopy on the exterior and poured concrete counters and wood seats inside. The interior space has been divided into a large, open ground-floor merchandise arena and a mezzanine overlooking the main floor, reached by open steps. The display cases are movable, so the space can be reconfigured at any time.

The display racks are filled with art supplies, dorm supplies, Pratt logo merchandise and a big selection of books (about a third are textbooks with the rest being trade books) on painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, interior design, digital media, furniture, woodworking, fashion, ceramics and jewelry.

The mezzanine has more books and design and fashion magazines as well as an open area that will be a performance space for readings and lectures by artists and writers. A 750-square-foot exhibition and retail space is evolving into "Pratt by Design" – featuring products and artwork created by Pratt alumni and faculty. Mezzanine seating encourages customers to stay as long as they want and an espresso bar is planned. Donald Condrey, general manager of the store, is a longtime retailer who ran the campus bookstore at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

The previous Pratt bookstore was in a cramped space in the basement of an administration building. The new store is the latest of several changes during Dr.Schutte's tenure that have increased Pratt's visibility. PrattStore's official opening party is scheduled for Jan. 27. But last weekend, on a rainy late afternoon, PrattStore already appeared like a brightly lighted beacon on Myrtle Avenue, and passers-by continually stopped, knocked and mouthed through the glass doors, "Are you open yet?"

The supplicants were a diverse group, older women carrying shopping bags, parents with strollers, bearded men wearing berets and children. Nodding toward one wall of the store, Mr. Condrey noted, "We do have a large kids' art supply section, and we're working with local schools on a discount program for students."

Mr. Condrey said the store would welcome ideas from its customers. "At the front of the store, we're going to have a big bulletin board called Soap Box, where people can post their ideas about service, merchandise, even programs," he said. "We expect we'll get plenty of suggestions, and we plan to take them very seriously."

It’s the largest book store in Brooklyn. The architect: Richard Scherr. Located at 550 Myrtle Ave.