Ocean Avenue is lined with large, detached single-family homes on deep lots, making it incredibly attractive to developers who want to construct mid-rise apartment buildings in low-slung sections of southern Brooklyn. Last week, one of those developers filed an application to build a six-story residential project at 2503 Ocean Avenue, on the border between Madison and Sheepshead Bay.
The new building would rise between Avenue T and Avenue U, just four blocks east of the elevated Q train stop at Avenue U. It would hold 10 units spread across 7,500 square feet of residential space, yielding an average, rental-sized apartment of 750 square feet. The developer doesn’t have to include parking for a 10-unit building, and the permits don’t list any.
The developer is Queens Village-based Jinzhui Chen, doing business as Ocean Tower House LLC. He’s tapped Chang Hwa Tan, an architect headquartered in Flushing, to handle the design.
The 2,750-square-foot property is currently home to a two-story, single-family home, but demolition permits have not yet been filed to knock it down. It last changed hands in January for $820,000, or roughly $99 per buildable square foot.
A new condo building opened next door in 2006, and a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment there sold for $520,000 last year.
Ocean Avenue was partially upzoned in 2006, but this two-block stretch was simply given a height cap and a similar density in a switch from R6 to R6A. Most of the surrounding blocks only allow two- or three-story residential buildings, zoning which prevents most new construction in this very affordable, middle-class enclave.
In the last several months, five other residential developments have been filed on Ocean Avenue, beginning in Flatbush and stretching down through Madison.
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