A ‘GARDEN’ GROWS
A rare condo building comes to low-rise Carroll Gardens
B ROOKLYN’S quaint Carroll Gardens may be best known for its nice stock of historic rowhouses and brownstones. Now, however, area house hunters on the prowl for a condo — as well as the comparative ease and shared amenities they provide — have a new option.
A seven-story building at 145 President St., logically named 145 President, launches sales on Thursday with asking prices from $2.3 million. Notably, its 17 units, including one two-bedroom and a gaggle of three- and four-bedrooms, more than double the neighborhood’s existing condo inventory, which listings site StreetEasy tallies at 16. Their prices span from $875,000 to $3.75 million.
Carroll Gardens “has very few developable sites,” says Jesse Wark, principal of Avery Hall Investments, which developed and designed this building. “For the most part, you have a lot of existing brownstones and townhomes that are on very small lots, so it doesn’t make sense to try and develop those.”
Inside the address — itself the product of an assemblage of vacant lots and some townhouses — residences feature 5-inchwide white oak floors, ceiling heights measuring 9 feet and up, and kitchens with Miele appliances and Turkish marble counters and backsplashes. Units also have large windows. Amenities include a 1,500-squarefoot roof terrace with Manhattan views, a gym and a library. Stribling Marketing Associates is handling sales and marketing.
Beyond the spiffy finishes, the developer has a perhaps more important aim for the relatively tall 145 President: help it fit into Carroll Gardens’ low-slung surroundings.
“We’re always trying to marry a new building . . . with what’s existing,” Wark says.
For example, Avery Hall added a Danish brick facade because other brick buildings stand in the immediate vicinity.
But its height could cast a shadow on the neighborhood — literally, according to Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, a preservation group focusing on significant New York City neighborhoods.
“The problem is the building is about twice the size of all its neighbors — and that’s the breaking scale that has a big impact on the visual environment,” Bankoff says. Nearby residents could see reduced light exposure in their homes, while the impact of the building will be felt across the street, too. Bankoff adds: “It’s going to block the sky. It’s going to reorient the entire way you experience the block.”
Wark says he’s witnessed no opposition to the development, which is being built within existing zoning rules. Adds Wark, “It is larger than the neighbors, but still feels intimate and contextual.”