Condos at Boerum and Dean, developed by Philip Mendlow in 2002.
Brooklyn has long been known for its townhouses, but usually they're prewar brownstones. New development, on the other hand—at least the market-rate kind—tends to be multifamily, with developers cramming in as many small units as they can in send-ups of Manhattan condo towers.
But developers have started to warm to the single-family spreads (and not surprisingly, given the soaring cost of Brooklyn townhouses). Following on the heels of Carroll Gardens' Sackett Union townhouses (six left, if you've got $4 million burning a hole in your pocket) and the Landmarks Preservation Commission's approval of Dumbo's first new townhouses comes word that five new townhouses are in the works for... well, we're not quite sure whether it's Boerum Hill or Cobble Hill, and we'd rather scratch out our eyes than call it BoCoCa(Go?), so we'll just go with the historical term for the entire swath and call it South Brooklyn.
Bluerock Real Estate just picked up 91 feet of vacant land for $3.32 million, currently mapped as 321 and 325 Pacific Streets, and plans to build five townhouses, the company told The Observer. (They also picked up 330 Atlantic Avenue on the same block for $1.42 million, but wouldn't divulge what they intended to do with the property.)
"We're developing the Pacific Street lots to start with," Bluerock Senior Vice President and Development Manager Philip Mendlow told The Observer. He went on to describe the five four-story single-family houses that company plans to build, four of which will have garages, with 3,300-3,400 square feet of floor space each.
"I'm not going to name an architect—he's not well known," Mr. Mendlow said, "but the façades will be totally contextual to the landmark district."
"The five houses will look different from one another," he continued. "They're mostly brick, but there will be some brownstone. We're trying to develop an architectural vocabulary from the neighborhood—a couple of them will look like carriage houses, and the one without a garage will refer more to the brownstone character."
While Bluerock is a relative newcomer to New York (The Charles, on First Avenue in Manhattan, was stalled for much of the recession, but has recently showed signs of life), Mr. Mendlow is not. "I've built in New York a number of times," he said. "There's a building at the corner of Dean and Boerum Place that I built about ten years ago.
The Pacific Street townhouses, on the other hand, are due for delivery in the summer of 2014.