Bergen Street in Prospect Heights is a hub of construction activity, and two residential buildings will finally rise on one of the strip’s last vacant lots between Underhill and Washington Avenues. Owner Benny Shlaff hopes to erect two nearly identical four-story developments at 731 and 733 Bergen Street.
New building applications filed yesterday detail plans for one structure with seven units and another with eight units. Both would hold 10,546 square feet, which will create spacious apartments averaging 1,500 square feet apiece. Condos seem likely, and are now the go-to choice for most small Prospect Heights developers. Most floors would have two apartments, except for the ground floor of 733 Bergen, where there would only be one unit. Gyms, laundry and mechanicals would occupy the cellars.
Architect Shmuel D. Flaum, who’s based just outside the eastern city limits in the Long Island village of Nassau, filed the two permits.
The apartments were likely split between two buildings to duck the city’s car-heavy zoning rules, which would require seven parking spots for a 15-unit building.
Two other projects are rising on this block. Right next door at 735 Bergen, Brookland Capital is nearly finished building a five-story, eight-unit condo development with an interesting angular facade. Then a four-story brick townhouse and a 75-unit rental building will share one lot across the street at 730 Bergen. A block to the east, just across Washington Avenue in Crown Heights, four more small apartment buildings are in the works.
Auto shops, warehouses and other light industrial businesses used to line much of Bergen and Dean Streets in the Prospect and Crown Heights borderlands. As property values have risen, developers bought up the old garages, spurring the current crop of new construction. The northwestern edge of Crown Heights is still zoned for manufacturing, which protects the tire shops and truck lots. But a residential rezoning—with possible affordable housing requirements—may dramatically change the area in a few years.
Subscribe to YIMBY’s daily e-mail
Follow YIMBYgram for real-time photo updates
Like YIMBY on Facebook
Follow YIMBY’s Twitter for the latest in YIMBYnews
