The continuing saga of the old PPLG HQ

As our much more conscientious blog-mates over at Across the Park recently pointed out, a developer's plan to turn the former PPLG HQ over at 185 Ocean Ave into an eight-story apartment building has been turned down...at least for now. The city's Department of Building's nixed every single application -- for a new building, construction, plumbing, etc. (although we'd bet that this is one of those all or nothing deals).

Poking around online turned up some more info: the submitted plans included seven residential floors, six of which would have three units; the top floor would be divided into two penthouses. The proposed structure was slated to be 80-feet tall and total 23,000 square feet, which, by my calculations, means the floors with three apartments would have about 850-sq ft units (assuming they were all slotted to be the same size), and the penthouses would be a healthy 1700 sq feet.* (I'm allowing for stairwells, etc, here). Just as interesting is the fact that the plans included a floor of commercial space, although it was hard (for me) to tell if that was meant to be for a retail business, office space, or a "community facility" -- which is what is listed on one of the applications filed with the DoB.

All this seems standard enough -- plans get turned down all the time, and there's no way to tell what caused these ones to be rejected. What's more interesting is the fact that less than a week after the city told him to stand down, the building was cited -- twice, actually -- for illegal excavation without a permit and demolition without approved plans. It goes without saying that we're not fully versed in the arcana of building in New York...but that does seem interesting.

* On one of the documents there's an indication that the structure would actually be nine stories, which would obviously change all these calculations.

27 Lincoln Road: No active permits...yet

In response to Gary's question on the previous post...according to the city's Department of Buildings, it appears that 27 Lincoln Rd. does not have any active building permits on file. The lot, which also includes 35 Lincoln Rd., also doesn't have a C of O; at the moment, it's zoned for a 2-story business/office. (Of course, there's enough pro-development sentiment that that wouldn't likely present a problem.) This doesn't necessarily mean anything one way or the other: a sale might not have gone through yet; the phantom developer could be waiting to finish up with the asbestos removal; the permits could still be working there way through the pipeline. But it is worth noting...

(In other development news: it looks like the former PPLG HQ doesn't have any active permits out either...)

New bar at the old Handyman? (This week's TILT SIP ProLeGs)

Charles just posted an intriguing comment in last week's post about the PLG commute (and how it compares to Williamsburg). I didn't want it to get lost in the shuffle, so here it is, in all its glory:

"There is a notice of a liquor license application on the gated storefront of what used to be The Handyman bar on Flatbush between Hawthorne and Winthrop." (The Handyman was at 673 Flatbush.) Any word/rumors/speculation about what's going on here? And while we're at it, let's fire up this week's TILT SIP ProLeGs -- or Things I'd Like to See in Planet PLG. My latest fantasy: some sort of performing arts space. Yes, this was prompted by this morning's Times story about Williamsburg's Galapagos moving to Dumbo. I think the Times overstated the effect Galapagos had on Williamsburg -- the hipster revival was already off and running (and you could argue this as a chicken/egg thing, too) -- and I think they're overestimating the effect it'll have on Dumbo. That said, there's nothing like a destination, whether it's a top-notch restaurant, an intriguing gallery, a new performing arts space, to help introduce a neighborhood to the outside world.

Being paid for community development and the makeup of PLUS: a follow up

Last Thursday, I posted some details of the Prospect-Lefferts application for a city grant and what that would mean for staff funding. I'd urge everyone to check it out -- not to read the post itself, but to read the spirited responses left in the comments section.

One clarification: in raising the question of what appears to be a $50,000 annual payment to a salaried executive director (a post which current Prospect-Lefferts United (PLUS) for Services Mark Dicus nominated himself) I wasn't trying to pass any sort of judgment...I was just raising the question. I'm one of those 'sunlight is the best disinfectant' folks, and I'm hard-pressed to think of an example where more transparency in any kind of public or civic organization is a bad thing. Maybe $50,000 a year is way too little money; I really don't know. But it can't hurt to talk about it.

What does bother me is what feels like an attitude of secrecy within PLUS. There is currently no way for community members to communicate regularly with members of PLUS. I've received several reports from people who've tried to get information from current members -- in order to discuss various suggestions and to learn more about the application for the city grant -- and were told that was not information meant for the hoi polloi. And it seems as if there's still no information regarding what happened at last week's board meeting. (As it is, the only reason anyone outside of PLUS even knows about the application for city funds is because of an email snafu whereby Mark sent out what was meant to be an email to board members to the entire PLG Yahoo board.) I'm well aware of all the good work PLUS has done, just as I'm well aware of its passionate commitment to PLG. I'm also of the mind that if a group wants to speak for the community -- and get paid by the city for doing so -- we'd all be better off if more information was made available and more participation was encouraged.

That's my two cents. Anyone else want to weigh in?

Revitalizing our community: how much should we be paid?

Last night was a PLUS (Prospect-Lefferts United for Service) board meeting. (It didn't seem like there was a huge amount of advance warning about the time or location, but maybe we're wrong on that count.) The meeting, according to an email sent around yesterday at 1:45 pm, was meant to discuss Prospect-Lefferts' application for an Avenue NYC grant from the city's department of small business services. (Here's the city's SBS website; PLUS doesn't appear to have a site that outlines its work or mission.) Communities that receive the grants are estimated to get around $167,000 over the next four years, although funding will ultimately be decided according to "successful completion of the preceding year's activities."

In the first year of funding, the lion's share of that money -- $50,000 out of a total of $66,000 -- is designated towards "personnel and fringe" expenses. That certainly ain't chump change. In yesterday's email, current board president and A&H broker Mark Dicus nominated himself to serve as PLUS's official, salaried executive director. PLUS has certainly been active in the three years since it formed. Any thoughts on this kind of funding for personnel? Reports from last night's board meeting? Feelings about PLUS's work with other community groups? Opinions about the best way to spend a city grant? Info from K-Dog or Enduro owners on what it was, exactly, that brought them to the area? Thoughts about having a city-funded local group given the authority to speak (and spend) in the name of the community as a whole?

Get your condos here! And...your yoga?

The weekend's almost here, which means this weekend's open houses are almost upon us, which means...it's real estate time, folks! Today brings another glowing(ish) PLG feature, this one in the Post. The story focuses on the recent condo development, all of which highlight one of the main attractions of the neighborhood: the prices, which remain less than half as much as those directly across the park in the Slope. There's the 2233 Caton Ave development, a six-story, 15-unit, elevator building; the condos feature oak floors, balconies, and access to the buildings roof deck. It sounds like these are mainly 2-brs, with prices ranging from $400,000 to $525,000 for between 800 and 1,000 sq-feet of new development goodness. (Twenty percent of the units are in contract; closings will begin later this summer.) There's also discussion of the Rogers/Lefferts Aves building; 850-sq feet 2-br units there are priced between $350,000 and $400,000.

Finally, story also quotes Prospect Lefferts United for Services' (PLUS) and A&H's Mark Dicus, who says there are plans to bring a wine shop, a lady-folk gym, and a yoga studio to the area. (Lord knows there's enough vacant retail space.) If those plans do pan out, I'd expect a big change here: the Ditmas exodus went from a trickle to a landslide once The Farm on Adderley, a high-end wine shop, a gorgeous furniture store, etc., joined the already-existing food co-op...

Lord knows there have been stories touting PLG as the next big thing for years (check out this Times story from 2004), but this really is one of the last remaining neighborhoods were single-family homes are available for a million bucks, and it's the only one within spitting distance from the Park (and on an express train). As for 2-brs in new construction buildings with nice appliances for under $500,000...well, try finding that anyplace else from Prospect Park South and points north (or west). The summer buying season should tell us a lot about what's to come. With prices at or above their 2006 highs, people hoping to wait out the boom are likely to wade back in before there's another double-digit increase in housing prices. And for people looking for some of the last bargains in the area...well, we're it.

Sunday's Times celebrates PLG (And: the meaning of racial diversity)

The Real Estate section of tomorrow's Times features a wonderful article on writer Darcy Steinke and her 120-year-old wood-frame Victorian located in the heart of PLG. Steinke got in ahead of the curve -- in 2002, she paid (deep breath) $240,000 for her 1,800-sq ft Hawthorne St. home. Granted, it was a mess, but even a significant fixer-upper anywhere in the historic district would cost upwards of $500,000 today.

Steinke describes the best of PLG, and she does so quite truthfully. On her first visit to the neighborhood, she says she "felt a little nervous about the clusters of young men hanging out on some of the street corners," but also realized she loved the warmth of the residents, the area's racial diversity, and PLG's location so close to the Prospect Park.

The racial diversity is one of our favorite things about the neighborhood, too. The mandated single-family residences in the Manor gives PLG a sort of stability that's unique in the city's (and the borough's) gentrifying neighborhoods, where you often find a kind of reverse white-flight: hipsters move in; longtime, predominantly minority residents move out. Not so here. On our block, we have more diversity within a 10-house radius than we've had anyplace else we've lived; more importantly, virtually everyone in the neighborhood gathers outside after work to talk about their days. In Park Slope (and Carroll Gardens, and Boerum Hill), diversity often seems as if it can be measured in whether you trace your musical lineage back to the Pixies or to Radiohead. I love the Pixies and Radiohead (and I love a lot of the restaurants in the Slope). But I also love the fact that my children will grow up in a neighborhood where they'll experience living next to, and interacting with, people who look differently than they do.

Steinke, incidentally, also illustrates another of our favorite things about the neighborhood: the influx of writers and artists. Steinke's latest book, Easter Everywhere, was inspired in part by her home in PLG. Her partner is a reporter at the Wall Street Journal. A Times writer and a couple of magazine journalists live within several of blocks of us. And there's a sense among all of us that this is someplace we actively want to be...even if initially it was someplace we just happened to end up in.

The things I'd like to see in Planet PLG

And I'm talking about the entire neighborhood, not the website...

The last year-plus has brought some notable additions, with the just-redone K-Dog paving the way for Enduro and now, it seems, a revamped (or at least revamping) Papa & Sons. The CSA will add a weekly supply of delicious, farm-fresh produce.

But there's a lot left that's still be desired. I, for one, would love a restaurant that's a true destination -- the kind that would bring in outsiders and show off what PLG has to offer -- rather than an acceptable alternative; as thankful as I am that Enduro is here, it's hard to pitch it as anything more than your typical, standard-fare Mexican.

I could go on, but I'd rather hear from everyone else out there. Which is why I'm launching a new feature, TILT SIP ProLeGs. (Now there's a catchy acronym.) Write in with your deepest desires, and every week or so I'll put them all together in an effort to steer the conversation in one direction or another. Our ideal world is only as small as your imagination...

On sale in PLG: the allure of a $799,000 house (and a $299,000 2BR)

Some interesting properties newly on the market in the hood. There's this two-story townhouse on Sterling between Rogers and Nostrand, which is a bit east of what we normally think of as Lefferts Garden but it is, indeed, part of the landmarked district.

Corcoran has the listing for $799,000; if this was located .2 miles west and .3 miles south (putting it on Maple between Bedford and Rogers), it'd be a steal. As a comparison, check out this Brown Harris property on Midwood between Bedford and Rogers; it's also a two-floor townhouse but is listed at $925,000. The Brown Harris listing does have a garden -- and judging from the photos posted online, the Corcoran house looks as if it might not -- and the B-H listing might have some more original detail, but the Sterling St. one definitely appears to be in decent shape.

There's also this 3-bedroom Tudor on Chester Court listed for $697,000. Even more than the Corcoran house, this is a property that's going to be effected by its location. Chester ain't no Beekman, but it's sketchier than just about any Manor block on the other side of Flatbush. It also butts up against the subway tracks. Still, even for what appears to be a pump-and-dump property, there's a lot to like here: jacuzzi, finished basement, two fireplaces, backyard, exposed ceiling beams, wainscotting, parquet floors; if you told your average New Yorker you could get a single-family home that was a stone's throw from Prospect Park for under three-quarters of a million bucks, they'd assume you'd just been dropped off from a 1990s time machine. (An aside - and I know I'm about the billionth person to remark on this -- but it boggles my mind that some real estate companies are so lazy (or ignorant) as to not even bother to set up a functioning website. It's the equivalent of not bothering to clean up the dog crap in your front yard before you schedule a showing.)

Speaking of stupid web strategies, here's a $299,000, 2BR listing with virtually no information contained therein. I'm pretty sure it's 306 Lincoln Rd (between Rogers and Nostrand). It's these type of properties that are going to be the most interesting over the next year. A million bucks -- which is probably a good average for townhouses in the Manor proper -- is going to be too high for a lot of younger couples/families priced out of Park Slope (or Fort Greene, or Windsor Terrace, or virtually anyplace north of Brooklyn College), especially without the possibility of rental income to offset the mortgage. But a $299,000 2BR with 10% down comes out to a monthly mortgage of $1,662...and that's less than you're gonna pay in rent in most places in the city. When I moved to New York (in the early 1990s), I was paying almost a grand to live down in the Lower East Side, and that was when junkies were literally shooting up on the street. (I actually was only paying a grand until I discovered the apartment I was living in was stabilized; from that point on I paid $350. But you get the point.)

Anyone seen any of these places? Or have any thoughts? I'd especially love to hear from apartment hunters out there...

Don't go changing to try and please me

The notion that PLG has been "next" -- the next undiscovered neighborhood, the location of the next real estate explosion, the next retail hotspot -- has been around virtually since Flatbush recovered from the dual blows of the '77 riots (which drove out many of the mom and pop stores that lined the Avenue) and the decade-long crack binge that's been on the wane since the mid-1990s (although reminders certainly survive on Beekman Place).

Even considering the years of not-quite-realized expectations (or hype, depending on your viewpoint), there seems to be more positive indicators now than there's been in, well, ever, a fact which has not gone unnoticed by the more observant Brooklyn observers out there. Brown Harris Stevens -- which, for years, has seemed like the only real estate agency that has any sense of the PLG market -- has, within the last the six months, sold three houses on Midwood between Flatbush and Bedford, the much-discussed Ocean Ave abode, and a 25-foot wide beauty on the corner of Rutland & Bedford, all for $1.2 million or above. This weekend, Corcoran is hosting an open house for another property on that first block of Midwood (a three-story landmarked brick priced at $1.2); just down the block, Brown Harris is having another showing of the two (and a half) story limestone (and former Brownstoner house of the day) at 181 Midwood for $925,000. (We haven't seen either of those; however, judging from Corcoran's seemingly poor sense of pricing in the neighborhood, it's hard to know what to expect from them.)

Still, despite the surfeit of homes on the market -- and despite the fact that PLG seems to be the only neighborhood within a mile of the park where gorgeous single families can be had for between $900,000 and $1.25 million -- there remain many people who've never even heard of PLG...and meanwhile, broken-down brownstones much further from the park (and from transportation) and in more dangerous neighborhoods regularly command prices that are 20 percent.

So what gives? One theory is services. Another is mid-market availability -- unlike virtually every other brownstone neighborhood, the century-old gems in the Lefferts landmark district can't be carved up. On the one hand, that means that a lot of original detail remains; it also means there's no rental income to offset mortgages and no floor-throughs for people to buy.

There's also the notion that PLGers like where they live, like they way they live, and don't particularly feel like cheerleading. The other evening, as five families (and their nine kids, all between two and ten) gathered on the sidewalk after work and before dinner, one of the fathers (a musician with two of the aforementioned kids), said that he often felt as if he didn't like New York...but that he loved PLG. It wasn't hard to understand what he meant. Many of the neighborhoods we've lived in -- from Williamsburg to Boerum Hill, from the Lower East Side to the West Village -- have gone from being vibrant and wonderful to being overrun and annoying...oftentimes within four or five years (less if said neighborhood is featured on the Sex and the City tour). Maybe the real reason PLG hasn't seen more wholesale change is as simple as the fact that the people who live there are happy with things the way they are...