NEW YORK—Nestled between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens—two of Brooklyn’s most established, mature brownstone neighborhoods—Gowanus is a destination neighborhood in the middle of an economic and environmental transformation.
It was formerly an industrial neighborhood with limited housing stock, with mainly just one- or two-story row houses spattered between warehouses and factories. Now Gowanus’s housing inventory is increasing and improving. Developers have been parceling land, getting zone variances to build higher, and starting construction on the largest residential projects the area has ever seen.
The first game changer for many developers and property owners occurred in 2010, when the Gowanus Canal became a Superfund cleanup site. Another turning point came in 2013, when a Whole Foods store opened on Third Avenue.
Developers, such as Lightstone and Adam America, have started new residential projects in the area—banking on cashing in on rising rents and property prices. At the same time, entrepreneurs have been steadily entering the neighborhood, bringing new concepts for restaurants, cafés, arts spaces, and activities.
The result is that median residential rents in Gowanus have increased to around $3,240 a month, according to recent data compiled by Ideal Properties Group, a Brooklyn-based brokerage. The median rent in Park Slope is $2,800, according to Brownstoner.
Median sales prices in Gowanus are up 20 percent year-on-year, hovering around $840,000, according to Ideal Properties’ data. But most surprising is that median asking prices in Gowanus are now over $1 million dollars, at $1.199 million.
“So the question is whether this will be achieved,” said Ideal’s managing director Aleksandra Scepanovic, referring to the ballooning asking prices.
“But this is where the local property owners are in their thinking about the value of their properties,” Scepanovic said. “So that, just like everything else in brownstone Brooklyn, has changed dramatically over the course of the last few years.”
According to census data analyzed by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, about a quarter of the population in Gowanus is between the ages of 25 and 34, and almost 15 percent of the residents are self-employed.
