Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue Comes Revving Back to Life

Fourth Avenue is gaining in respectability as the auto repair shops and vacant lots are turned into glassy luxury apartments. Since being rezoned, Park Slope has seen a few apartment buildings go up, but now that the Brooklyn market is heating up, builders are crawling over each other to get a piece of the action. 275 Fourth Avenue, currently occupied by a McDonald’s will soon be replaced by a 75-unit residential building. The developer plans to build a high-end, 75,000-square-foot building with 6,000 feet of retail on the ground floor. Construction is scheduled to begin in March 2014.

The original asking price for the100-foot by 100-foot corner lot was $200 per square foot, but ended up closing for $256. This shows how land prices have escalated in just past few months.

The buyer was a joint venture between Adam America Real Estate and Silverstone Property Group, who have worked on a number of deals together in Brooklyn already.

They’ve hired ODA Architecture, a high-design firm that has worked on small- to mid-sized projects in Manhattan and the outer boroughs, to do the project—a far cry from the more budget-minded designs that have popped up along Fourth Avenue.

A few of ODA's recent projects include 241 Fifth Avenue, 5 Franklin Place in Tribeca, and St. Vincent's Hospital conversion at 101 West 15th Street.

The two developers are also working with ODA on a warehouse in Dumbo, 201 Water Street that they’re converting to condominiums.

When completed, the building will join nearby developments such as the Arias Park Slope at 150 Fourth Avenue, JDS Development’s 202 8th Street and the Landmark Park Slope at 267 Sixth Street — all rental buildings — which have transformed the avenue.

Aside from the McDonald’s parcel, properties at 245 and 269 Fourth Avenue are already in contract for residential development, along with 470 Fourth Avenue, between 10th and 11th Streets, one of the largest development sites in Park Slope, which zoned for 86,000 square feet of development.

Developers have been steadily betting on the neighborhood, including those who have traditionally operated in Manhattan. Just 10 blocks away, the Naftali Group closed on a 90,000-square-foot development site at 316 Bergen Street and is slated to build an 85-unit rental building.

And builders are still looking for sites...