116 Troutman: Gentrification With a Roar
You heard it here first, through several grapevines: 116 Troutman, aka “Troutman Gardens,” that gigantimus concrete thing going up on Troutman Street and Central Avenue, is not to be senior housing. It is not to be subsidized rentals. It is not to be income-restricted coops. It is to be at least 146 condominiums, with one-bedrooms for $300,000. I attempted to get more info out of the developer’s office but the number I scraped up just rang and rang.
It lands with a thunderous fist in the middle of this gap-toothed, half-burned-down, industrial fringe part of Bushwick proper. Several hundred people with upscale tastes and the wallets to back them up will descend on this one little block to live in a megapalace built on the former site of the Castle Braid Company factory. This development, together with several new-construction condos and rentals going up within one block — not to mention the thousands of students, artists, homos and hipsters already flooding into the immediate area — is sure to transform this part of the neighborhood into a bustling, amenity-packed enclave.
The developer is Mayer Schwartz, the owner of the “mini-mall” on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, and the Opera House Lofts on Arion Place in Bushwick. As someone who seems to understand how to manufacture “cool,” I’m guessing Schwartz won’t leave us with an eyesore like the Nightmare on Grove Street. This building, at least, fronts the street properly and adjoins its neighbors, the way things are traditionally constructed in New York.
The prices seem steep, but not as steep as the stagnant 979 Willoughby. 54 St. Nicholas had no problems selling out at $300K for 6 smallish one-bedrooms, though they were undeniably lovely, and a very different product.
More info as it comes!
January 26th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Good news! I can’t wait to see what happens with this.
January 26th, 2008 at 4:28 am
I want everything around me to explode in condo bliss and make all the Latino, all the Hasidic, all the whoever totally fucking rich… cause then I’ll fuck off to southern Spain and have sex with real hot women, not these god damn pretend barbie dolls.
January 26th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
I walked by these today and was amazed at the amount of construction going on in this area. I also noticed that the owner of the Grove St. building is putting up “SOLD” signs in the windows of some of the units facing Wyckoff. I wonder how many of these are actually sold. I really wish they would rezone some of the industrial area down by my building (Willoughby) so we could get some new condos down here.
January 26th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
spoke to my agent who knows the people over at grove st condo’s . They are selling like hot cakes
January 26th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Those concrete slabs come prefab and are put together like a great big jigsaw puzzle - and the trucks would park in front of my place while they were building it. All I know is it’s a Hasidic owner and the trucks idled about as much as the Boar’s Head trucks, which means a truck is a truck… Kosher or not.
January 28th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I guess this goes to show that there is still a market for new condos a the low end of the market. That same one bedroom in Williamsburg would be a least 50% more expensive.
January 31st, 2008 at 8:36 pm
This will probably be the nicest building in the neighborhood. The developer has a knack for building with class.
Joe
March 19th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
I’m not sure the Nightmare on Grove Street is selling too well. They started selling last summer and still have over 50 percent of the units for sale on their website. Also, the entrance to that nightmare is a mugger’s dream. The entrance is submerged below the sidewalk with a concrete wall blocking the view from the street.
March 30th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Aren’t the Opera House Lofts rentals?