7 of 9 Units Sold After Just 3 Weeks
On Market
By Linda Collins
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
PROSPECT HEIGHTS — After just three weeks on the market, seven of the nine apartments at a Prospect Heights condominium have accepted offers and they are at or close to the asking price, according to Gregory Todd, an associate broker with The Corcoran Group.
Calling it “one of the few bright lights on an otherwise dreary landscape,” Todd credits the reasonable prices, location near an active subway stop and shopping, and the exceptional renovations by the owners/developers, William and Kristin Crosby, and their architect, Michael Just.
“It’s also a really great block, a tree-lined street that is mostly residential,” he said of the building, which is at 658 Park Place, between Franklin and Bedford avenues.
The nearby Franklin Avenue subway stop is one of the busiest in the borough, showing an increase in ridership of about 630 percent, according to Todd, who explained that the Jewish Hospital on Prospect Place had been converted into 600 apartments “and they are all rented.”
The conversion at 658 Park Place was done following a fire when the building had to be vacated, Todd said. It was a standard eight-family building with railroad-type layouts that is now a nine-unit building with new plumbing, individual heating and hot water, washer and dryer hookups and common outdoor space on a roof deck.
“The owners wanted to keep the costs and prices down,” he said, noting that the Crosbys currently live on Long Island, but William grew up in nearby Bed-Stuy. The architect is also Brooklyn-based.
Keeping the prices down means that the average price per square foot is just under $400 while most of the other condos in the area are in excess of $500-per-square-foot.
The asking prices ranged from $318,900 for a 712-foot studio to $575,000 for the largest 1,648-square-foot two-and-a-half bedroom unit.
Those remaining are a two-bedroom of 1,092 square feet priced at $440,000 and a two-and-a-half bedroom unit of 1,186 square feet priced at $465,000.
Another element that seemed to attract buyers was the staging. “It really seemed to make a difference,” Todd said. The staging was done by Eudia Holmes who calls her firm HEE (Happy Environments for Everyone).
Asked about any green elements, Todd noted the units have tankless hot water heaters which cut water usage and save owners money.
But as another spokesperson for The Corcoran Group pointed out, “The main green feature is that the project is a conversion of an existing building.” He quoted Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, as follows:
“People don’t often realize that by renovating an existing building, the developer is re-using all of the existing bricks, mortar and major structural elements, thereby avoiding the creation and shipping of tons of material.”
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