Just east of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Prospect Lefferts Gardens is seeing almost as much new construction as its pricier neighbor to the north, Crown Heights. Filings for new buildings roll in every few weeks, ranging from little market-rate developments to partially affordable megaprojects from developer Hudson Companies. Now we have an application for a five-story apartment building at 195 Hawthorne Street, between Bedford and Rogers Avenues.
The 55-foot-tall building will fill a vacant lot sandwiched between a three-story brick walkup and a two-family wood frame house. It will hold 10 apartments and 12,749 square feet. Average units will weigh in around 1,247 square feet, suggesting that condos may be in the works.
Each floor will have two units, and the roof will have shared and private terraces. The cellar will also include a garage for just one car. This project is small enough that the developer doesn’t have to build any parking, and its inclusion sends another signal that this will be condos.
The developer is Jerry Atkins of Lower East Side-based investment firm Atkins & Breskin, and Hustvedt Cutler Architects will design the project. Atkins & Breskin purchased the 40-foot-wide property for $872,639 last year.
The firm also bought a handful of multifamily buildings in the neighborhood last year, including 609 New York Avenue, 1207 Nostrand Avenue, 1201 Nostrand and 1144 Nostrand, and in 2013, they bought 1198-1206 Nostrand.
And this isn’t the only project on this block of Hawthorne Street. A four-story, eight-unit building will replace a little yellow wood frame across the street at 194 Hawthorne.
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I’m glad that beautiful frame house to the west of this development is spared, at least for now. That house is one we pointed out back in the ’70s as a reason to include this block of Hawthorne Street in the Historic district that the Landmarks Preservation Commission had proposed for PLG. We failed at that and LPC actually dropped the small part of Hawthorne that had been included in the proposed district, which eventually ended at the north side of Fenimore Street. Too bad; this 5 story condo might still have been built but, if it was within an Historic District it surely would have looked much better than the cheap-looking eyesore we’ll probably end up with.
And yes, I AM pre-judging this new development, based on the poor quality of other new construction in our neighborhood. Perhaps I’ll be proved wrong with this building; I hope so, but I won’t hold my breath.
I live on this block and also hope the design is better than the new construction we’re getting in this neighborhood. That being said, anything will look better than the empty trash filled hole that’s been there at least since we moved here three years ago. And hopefully it will also encourage the building across the street to get its act together.