The city in August announced that the Department of Planning would initiate a study on the neighborhood for a possible rezoning. In doing so, Gowanus will join East Harlem, East New York and Long Island City as areas targeted for rezoning under the city’s affordable-housing strategy.
Surrounded on three sides by Park Slope, Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill, Gowanus has been dubbed the next Dumbo. Between 2007 and 2015, median home sales prices rose to $720,000 from $535,335 — a nearly 35 percent jump. And in what might be the biggest sign of a neighborhood on the rise, residents in 2013 celebrated the grand opening of a Whole Foods supermarket. More recently, in April, the shared-workspace provider Cowork.rs debuted a 42,000-square-foot location at 92 Third Avenue, a former industrial building renovated by Dumbo Heights collaborator LIVWRK. And in other positive signs, the neighborhood boasts a total of 800 hotel rooms (source: Commercial Observer), and there are already several large residential projects in the works or planned — including Atlantic Realty’s 268-unit building at 363 Bond Street and Hudson Companies’ Gowanus Green, a long-stalled, 774-unit development slated to begin work in 2018.
While these signs are promising for the real estate market in Gowanus, challenges that have deterred development in the past remain. The most coveted land in Gowanus which sits along the waterfront is also the most polluted. And the scope of the federal government’s cleanup is yet to be determined. As a result, brokers have steered clear of mentioning the waterway in their marketing efforts.
The other challenge is around the uncertainty of how much of Gowanus will be zoned residential. Business owners who bought properties many years ago still own significant portfolios in Gowanus and have been reluctant to sell.