Account of Downtown Brooklyn luxury living ignores failure to require affordability in upzoning. Serhant swivels from promoting "park" to in-building lifestyle.

So, check out Settling, in Downtown Brooklyn, published three days ago by New York magazine's Curbed, quoting wealthy people who've moved to the new amenity-rich high-rises in Downtown Brooklyn, happy to have gym, laundry, roof deck all within their residence.

From the article:

Downtown Brooklyn’s rise as a luxury-living destination happened almost despite itself. In the 20 years since its rezoning, 22,000 new apartments have been built with 8,000 more on the way, and each luxury tower seems to function as a self-contained little universe for its contented inhabitants.

The benefit is price compared to Manhattan, with a quick commute, as well as a relatively short walk, depending on location, to Brooklyn Heights and Fort Greene, or Barclays and BAM. So, while the Williamsburg and Greenpoint waterfronts offer great views and green space, they're far from the subway.

It's interesting to hear Ryan Serhant, the real-estate agent whose firm markets Brooklyn Point, saying, “You have an amazing view, a 25-year tax abatement, low monthlies, two pools. You’re like, ‘You know what? This is actually okay.’ Everyone has a checklist. And more people chose quality of life inside their apartment than ever before.’” 

The AY/PP contrast

Of course, when Serhant was marketing 550 Vanderbilt, the amenity-rich sole condo tower in Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, the pitch was different: "Through the masterful vision of COOKFOX, 550 Vanderbilt offers the inaugural opportunity to live and own in New Yorks [sic] newest park."

If and when Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park is finally built out, the publicly accessible, privately managed green space should help with marketing. But that buildout is very much uncertain and, if it comes, construction might be less than pleasant.

For now, the newest rental towers, like 595 Dean, are amenity-rich themselves,

Downtown Brooklyn down the memory hole

"Downtown Brooklyn’s rise as a luxury-living destination" happened because the city's 2004 rezoning was aimed to encourage new office towers, but allowed landowners and developers to instead build residential--and with no requirement for below-market affordable housing.

So this latest article could've quoted from New York's profile last year of former Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff:

Rezoning Downtown Brooklyn did not produce the new office district that he insisted New York needed in order to compete. It did create a high-rise residential neighborhood but whiffed the opportunity to include abundant affordable housing.

As I commented, not simply "whiffed" but actively resisted, since the Bloomberg administration was too focused on growth to require such affordability when it rezoned Downtown Brooklyn and Fourth Avenue.

Treading lightly on DTB

From the article:

But the neighborhood still feels, in the words of one of the few residents who has lived there since the late ’90s, “unformed.” People queue up for social services on Schermerhorn Street a half-block from Chelsea Piers, where memberships run around $300 a month. It’s a maze of construction fences, and the dining scene is dominated by fast-food franchises...

Fulton Street Mall is one of the city’s busiest shopping areas. And while there have been successive attempts to make it wealthier and whiter since the 1960s, it has always been a thriving retail district, says Meredith TenHoor, an architectural and urban historian at Pratt, who co-wrote Street Value, a book about the area.

Well, that's because buses and trains bring workers, shoppers, and social services clients from all over Brooklyn, notably working-class Black neighborhoods.  

One commenter said she missed the "people I got to know from being an active member of the community... But to lock yourself away in an Ivory Tower and only concern yourself with your roof deck and salt water pool-well to me that misses the whole point of living in Brooklyn and New York City."

Another wrote:

schermerhorn & bond is a nexus that includes the goodwill store and that pricey hotel. there's a tower where there used to be a homeless intake shelter. they built their luxury where the most desperate people came for help.