When Giants Roamed the Earth…

You're never going to sell overpriced two-bedrooms with a banner like that.

It’s only been two days since I officially finished for the semester, so I haven’t had much chance to read up on any of my favorite goings-ons, but I was able to do plenty of thinking and picture taking during my daily treks through downtown Brooklyn on my way to Pratt.

So, we’ve got this whole recession thing on, and now everyone’s being tight with their money, not spending, property values are tanking, and developers are putting the brakes on even the biggest of projects. But because you can’t just stop development the second a global economic crisis hits, there’s bound to be some coasting done.

To make a long story short, downtown Brooklyn was recently rezoned to make room for, well, we’ll get to that later, but the rezoning, combined with the superheated housing market, lead to a proliferation of condo buildings that cropped up all over the place. When I first moved to State St. in 2005, there was an eight story condo going up at the end of my block. This process was repeating on numerous streets in the area, but the development was not that huge, yet. Still, I distinctly remember trying to figure out why anyone in their right mind would pay $600,000 for a “luxury” one-bedroom on the corner of State and Flatbush with tractor trailers engine-braking their way through Brooklyn traffic a mere hundred feet from the bedroom window. I thought an eight story building would have difficulties selling out all its units.

Then, in late 2007, something began to peek out from behind the building across the street from me. What ended up being called Forte had reared its ugly head and by the time I moved out in June 2008, it was ready for occupancy.

Skeleton of Forte, as seen out my old bedroom window.

Of course, Forte was not alone. Thanks to the rezoning, it had friends.

Finished Forte and friend.

And more friends.

You should see these two in person...

Same two from the other side.

And uglier friends.

Really?

The problem here, and this is in addition to all the fundamental reasons why this type of condo development is probably pretty bad for Brooklyn’s existing population, the superficial problem here is: Forte is still mostly empty. I bike past that place every night, and trust me, the lights aren’t on, and nobody’s home. So now we’ve got all these luxury high-rise buildings, all with market-rate housing, all on their way to being finished real soon, and the one building that is already finished is mostly vacant.

And this is just one neighborhood. Look at the waterfront development in Williamsburg, or the stretch of 4th Avenue south of Atlantic Terminal. Rows of massive condo buildings, all mostly finished or newly completed. Would be interesting to fast-forward a few years and see who’s living in them, or what their yearly income is.