Queens scene
Ridgewood offers low-cost option for millennials
Ridgewood is Bushwick’s cozier flip side.
The Queens neighborhood’s blocks and blocks of handsome, 19th-century brick row houses stand in warm contrast to its edgier Brooklyn neighbor to the south, where gritty industrial façades still predominate.
Low-key Ridgewood appeals to millennials and creative types priced out of Bushwick and other trendy Brooklyn nabes.
Its charms have also caught the attention of developers.
The Mill at 16-26 Madison St., on a former Post Office site a short stroll from the Wyckoff-Myrtle Avenue M and L train station, epitomizes the phenomenon.
Mitch Rutter’s Essex Capital Partners spent about $30 million to develop the justopened, seven-story apartment project with 92 rental units. Two-bedrooms range from $2,900 to $3,100 a month, one-bedrooms start at $2,300, and studios are in the $1,900 range.
The apartments aren’t in the low-priced, so-called “affordable” range, but they’re all rent-stabilized for 15 years — a trade-off with the city in exchange for a tax abatement.
Tenants have already begun moving in, Rutter said, drawn by generous-size units, contemporary finishes, wood-grain floor tiles and Caesarstone vanity tops. KSQ Architects designed a building that fits in easily with its neighbors. It boasts an amenity room including a pool table, a shared top-floor outdoor terrace with views of Manhattan and Brooklyn, and an on-site laundry.
“I do take pride in this job,” Rutter said. “It isn’t among our biggest, but the fact is, we were able to come in and not hurt, but help, a neighborhood. The building is contextual, and we didn’t have to destroy any housing stock.
“Ridgewood has all the components of an emerging neighborhood,” he said. “It has diversity, culture, lots of artists, galleries, walkability and mass-transit access.”
What Ridgewood does not have are public-housing projects, which inhibit gentrification in other areas. Rather, it has three city-designated historic districts, which protect handsome 19th-century buildings in variegated shades of yellow and orange brick from demolition.
Essex has developed and owned much larger projects than The Mill, but, Rutter said, “We’ll look at projects of any size. We’re a traditionally New York City investor.”
Essex previously developed rental-apartment tower 63 Schermerhorn St. in Downtown Brooklyn. It’s repositioned major Manhattan office buildings, including 1500 Broadway, and it owns a Hudson Yards-area site that can support a 250,000square-foot office tower.
Ridgewood’s enjoying a low-key, but increasingly visible, transition.
Hipster-like espresso bars are sprinkled amidst old Mexican diners. A recent guide to Ridgewood’s diverse food scene on Eater.com in- cluded Venezuelan Cachapa y Mas, Nepalese While in Katmandu, and German Gottscheer Hall. The giant new Billy’s Marketplace — a kind of global Whole Foods — carries products from Asia, Mexico, South America, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean in a single aisle, where we found Bosnian-Herzegovinian tea rings across from bags of prepackaged paella.