Kaya Laterman

NEW YORK — Domino Park opened last summer to rave reviews on the site of the former Domino Sugar refinery in Williamsburg, and the transformation of the sprawling industrial site continues this month with the opening of a 45-story, mixed-use tower on the edge of the East River.

One South First is the second building to go up on the Domino site. It has a defining presence, partly because it towers over everything around it and can be seen for miles from most directions, including an unblocked view from East Houston Street in Manhattan. But it is also striking for its design, by COOKFOX Architects: two interlocking towers connected by about a dozen floors at the top of the structure. The northern leg will have 150,000 square feet of office space, while the southern leg, as well as the connecting portion on top, will house rental apartments.

The tower’s visual prominence on the northern edge of the Domino site helped boost interest in the apartments before marketing officially began, said Rebecca Epstein, director of residential leasing at Two Trees Management Co., the developer: “We’ve had a lot of people come to us asking, ‘What is that and how can I get in there?’”

The award-winning facade design is an ode to the former refinery, with the white, chamfering precast concrete window frames intended to resemble the molecular structure of sugar crystals. To make the various curves and angles, the precast concrete was set in carbon-fiber reinforced plastic frames — instead of using traditional wood — that were created by large-scale 3-D printers at Ohio-based Additive Engineering Solutions and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, a U.S. Department of Energy science and technology research facility.

Dean Gwin, president of Gate Construction Materials Group, the Florida firm that made the window frames in its facilities in Kentucky and North Carolina, said using the new technology, called “big area additive manufacturing,” shaved nine months off the construction timeline.

“You’re talking about the difference between hiring a lot of master carpenters to build hundreds of wooden frames that can only be used several times, versus a 3-D printer pumping out a frame that can be reused about a hundred times,” Gwin said.

The residential side of the building will have 330 apartments for rent, 66 of which will be designated as affordable housing. The market-rate studios start at $3,795, with one-bedrooms starting at $4,665 and two bedrooms at $6,725. Two penthouse floors will house a total of 30 apartments, available next spring, with higher ceilings and access to private rooftop cabanas.

The building’s base will house several retail outlets, including branches of Roberta’s, the Bushwick pizza utopia, as well as Other Half Brewing, OddFellows Ice Cream and a Two Hands cafe. Building amenities will include a pool and outdoor lounge area, conference rooms, and a fitness center.

Jed Walentas, a principal at Two Trees, said the building includes details that were added after lessons were learned at 325 Kent, which opened in 2017, the first building erected on the Domino site. After discovering that a majority of the residents in 325 Kent did not commute into Manhattan, Two Trees decided to increase communal work spaces by about 30% at One South First. Two bike storage areas will hold 300 bikes for both residential and commercial tenants, and the stairs leading to the basement will also have a bike access ramp, he said.

Some of the residential units will be ready in mid-September, while the office space will likely welcome tenants early next year.

The development site has several more phases that will take years to complete. Next, Two Trees plans to expand Domino Park. The SBSX Pumptrack Brooklyn, an outdoor bike and skate track, will close later this fall and become a one-acre open space that could be used for movie nights, farmers markets and graduations, Walentas said.

“This site is designed so that it’s immersed in the neighborhood,” he said. As the new buildings are finished, there will be more access points to the park from Kent Avenue so the buildings don’t cut off the waterfront to the public. “We didn’t want to just build condos and then kiss the area goodbye as we sold the homes.”

Two Trees also has started to convert the massive brick sugar refinery into office space, and there will be two additional towers: one on the south end of the site, next to the Williamsburg Bridge, and the other between the old refinery and One South First.

As for the rental market in Brooklyn, it is on stable footing. Median rent in the borough was at a record high at $3,000 in July and the number of new leases that were signed rose 13% from the previous year, according to the latest market report from Douglas Elliman.

“Anything on the waterfront in Brooklyn is hot right now,” said Henry Mullin, an Elliman agent.

This article originally appeared in

A New Tower Opens on the Domino Site in Williamsburg

(The High End)

<h1>NEW YORK — A New York City regulation that requires the installation of door-lock monitors on elevators by the end of the year is starting to cause bottlenecks in work at elevator consultancy and maintenance companies, catching some co-op and condo boards off guard at the long wait times they face to get the work done.</h1>

Donald Gelestino, president of Champion Elevator, an elevator maintenance and modernization company in Manhattan, estimates the regulation will affect some 44,000 elevators in the city that will need to have door-lock monitoring systems installed or upgraded. The system prevents an elevator from moving if the doors are not properly closed; the city regulation was prompted by the 2011 death of a woman who was boarding an elevator in a Manhattan office building when the cab lurched upward.

In 2014, the city’s Department of Buildings required all elevators to have the door-lock monitors by Jan. 1, 2020. It will disclose its enforcement plan before the deadline, but there will be financial penalties for noncompliance, according to Andrew Rudansky, a buildings department spokesman.

“Building owners have had five years to comply with city regulations requiring them to install these door-lock monitors. The deadline to meet this code requirement is right around the corner,” Rudansky said in an email, urging owners who are not in compliance to get to work and not leave planning to “the last minute.”

Gelestino said his company has a wait of about five to six weeks, but he expected that time frame to get longer in the coming months. He said he was surprised that he was still receiving calls from board members who were just finding out about the regulation. “Many people were caught off guard,” he said.

He advises boards that have not yet reached out to an elevator consultancy company to do so now, as equipment makers and maintenance firms expect to get backed up even further with orders. Boards should hire consultants to comply with this particular code, since such firms act as third-party inspectors on behalf of the buildings department, Gelestino said. However, the department will also check whether elevators have the door-lock monitors as part of routine elevator inspections that occur twice a year.

“We’re already in crunchtime,” he said. “There are not enough contractors to get all the work done in time.”

Door-lock monitor upgrades on newer elevators won’t cost much, because the required system is likely already in place and only has to be activated or needs only a simple software upgrade, according to Joseph Caracappa, president of Sierra Consulting Group, an elevator consulting company in Manhasset, New York. For elevators between five and 10 years old, modifications could cost $5,000 to $15,000; for those 10 years and older, the price could rise to $25,000.

Gelestino said the actual installation usually took one or two days but involved about five weeks of preparation to get permits, draw up blueprints and write engineering reports. Some elevators will require specific parts, such as a software panel, to be made by the manufacturer, requiring a longer lead time, he said.

“And boards should know that prices might go up as the deadline nears,” he said.

The buildings department is also requiring elevators to have a secondary emergency brake installed by 2027, which is prompting many boards to contemplate a complete elevator modernization project, especially if the system is more than 20 years old. Caracappa said many of his clients were opting to first install the door-lock monitor and planned for an entire overhaul in two to three years, or before the 2027 deadline.

“But it’s getting difficult to sign elevator modernization contracts right now since the focus is on door-lock monitoring compliance,” he added. Many buildings that want a complete overhaul are now waiting for work to start in October or November, he said.

A complete modernization is a long, painstaking process, according to Dennis DePaola, an executive vice president at Orsid Realty, a property management company in New York City.

He advises boards looking to modernize their systems to hire an elevator consultant to find out what specifically needs to be upgraded or brought up to code. The consultants typically suggest that boards get bids from three or four maintenance companies. It takes another six to eight weeks for a project to start after a contract is signed, De Paola said, and a complete overhaul can take 10 to 12 weeks.

“Board members need to be proactive to avoid the headaches” of being fined for noncompliance if they prioritize an optional, time-consuming modernization and miss a deadline for an upgrade required by the city.

Grant Duers, board president of an Upper West Side prewar condominium, said a complete modernization project was deemed a necessity once the board realized the building spent more than $80,000 in a fiscal year on maintaining its four elevators. After two years of research and planning, the board announced its plan to spend $1 million to upgrade its two passenger and two freight elevators at its annual meeting in May 2017.

“It’s a shocking number, so we spent a lot of effort on directly communicating with residents about the project from start to finish,” he said.

Caracappa said elevator modernization projects ran between $150,000 to $350,000 for each elevator.

Duers said multiple emails were sent to residents, and flyers were distributed explaining the project timeline. It took about 28 weeks, as elevators were fixed one at a time, and finished in March of 2018.

“The level of potential stress is so high,” Duers said, adding that the board also focused on giving frequent updates to building staff so they had the most up-to-date information and could share it with residents.

For buildings, especially those with only one elevator, that are planning a full modernization, boards need to communicate about the project to residents many months in advance, said Arline Kob, a principal of Key Real Estate Associates, a Manhattan property management company. During the on-site work of an elevator modernization, buildings usually do not allow moves in and out, renovations or large deliveries.

In general, Kob said, “Maintenance is a necessity, but it’s also a major inconvenience, and many boards are shocked when they deal with unforeseen delays.” She added: “When an elevator goes down, it’s really a big deal.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/14/realestate/deadline-approaching-for-elevator-upgrades.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.

A Deadline Is Approaching for Elevator Improvements

In 2014, the city’s Department of Buildings required all elevators to have the door-lock monitors by Jan. 1, 2020.

A deadline is approaching for elevator improvements

<h1>Donald Gelestino, president of Champion Elevator, an elevator maintenance and modernization company in Manhattan, estimates the regulation will affect some 44,000 elevators in the city that will need to have door-lock monitoring systems installed or upgraded. </h1>

The system prevents an elevator from moving if the doors are not properly closed; the city regulation was prompted by the 2011 death of a woman who was boarding an elevator in a Manhattan office building when the cab lurched upward.

NEW YORK — A New York City regulation that requires the installation of door-lock monitors on elevators by the end of the year is starting to cause bottlenecks in work at elevator consultancy and maintenance companies, catching some co-op and condo boards off guard at the long wait times they face to get the work done.

A senior at Lehman College in the Bronx dreams of starting her day with breakfast. An undergraduate at New York University said he has been so delirious from hunger, he’s caught himself walking down the street not realizing where he’s going. A health sciences student at Stony Brook University on Long Island describes “poverty naps,” where she decides to go to sleep rather than deal with her hunger pangs.

These are all examples of food insecurity, the state of having limited or uncertain access to food. Stories about college hunger have been largely anecdotal, cemented by ramen and macaroni and cheese jokes. But recent data indicate the problem is more serious and widespread, affecting almost half the student population at community and public colleges.

A survey released last week by Temple University Hope Center for College, Community and Justice indicated that 45% of student respondents from over 100 institutions said they had been food insecure in the past 30 days. In New York, the nonprofit center found that among City University of New York (CUNY) students, 48% had been food insecure in the past 30 days.

Kassandra Montes, a senior at Lehman College, is one of them. She unexpectedly had to take out a $5,000 loan this year to graduate, she said. Living in a Harlem homeless shelter as she attends classes, Montes also works two part-time jobs and budgets only $15 per week for food. She uses the campus food pantry to get most of her groceries and usually skips breakfast to make sure that her 4-year-old son is eating regularly.

“I feel like I’m slowing sinking as I’m trying to grow,” she said.

Although the college food-pantry movement is well underway, as there are now over 700 members of the College and University Food Bank Alliance, efforts have recently expanded to include redistributing leftover food from dining halls and catered events, making students eligible for food stamps and other benefits, and perhaps most important, changing national and state education funding to cover living expenses, not just tuition.

“The hunger movement has been centered around food banks, but that is now changing as people focus on prevention,” said Sara Goldrick-Rab, the founder of the Hope Center and a Temple professor.

The movement has largely focused on community and state colleges, as there are more low-income students who attend them. Hunger can force students to drop out of school to work more, which inhibits academic success, said Nicholas Freudenberg, a distinguished professor at CUNY’s Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy. Another ramification is an increase in student loans to cover living expenses, Goldrick-Rab said. (National student debt now totals about $1.5 trillion.)

Calvin Ramsay amassed “massive amounts of debt” while attending NYU. Being the first person from his family to go to college, he said he did not fully understand how much debt he was accumulating with his student loans. After two years on campus, Ramsay said he moved back home to Queens and started to use Share Meals, a digital platform created in 2013 that informs students about free food on campus.

“Food was a major obstacle,” he said, “especially in Manhattan.”

Ramsay said that he would need to borrow about $40,000 more to graduate, but he is unwilling to take on more debt to do so. “Why do I need to go into debt to eat?” he said.

CUNY has discovered that signing up students for SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, has helped. In 2009, the school system brought in Single Stop USA, a nonprofit organization that connects individuals with social services. Since then, Single Stop and other partners have served over 122,000 CUNY students, each of whom have received about $3,000 worth of benefits each year, said Sarah Crawford, Single Stop’s national education director.

Many states, including New York, have work requirements to get SNAP, but such a requirement should be waived if the recipient is a student, Crawford argued. In addition, many advocates say that SNAP benefits should be redeemable at dining halls and stores on campus.

Niasia Starling, a 22-year-old student at Nassau Community College, part of the State University of New York system, recently had her SNAP benefits terminated because she stopped working to take care of an ill parent.

Starling, who has been sleeping at a friend’s house because she has no home, said that she finds comfort at the NEST (Nassau Empowerment and Support for Tomorrow), the campus food pantry. Besides getting necessary supplies, she has found a support group there.

“I know I am not less than other people because I don’t have as much,” the upbeat Starling said. “But it’s hard to be hungry and motivated.”

Since it opened in November 2015, the NEST has buzzed with life. On a recent weekday morning, dozens of students grabbed multiple shopping bags of food, which also helps feed their families, said Sharon Masrour, one of the project’s organizers. The pantry is now a model for other SUNY and CUNY pantries and is part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Food Insecurity Task Force. It is also now a stop on freshman orientation tours.

“The role of a campus food pantry has gone beyond just providing food,” Masrour said. It’s a chance for the school to check in on a student’s life outside of campus because the tiers of issues, like health and housing, all contribute to food insecurity. “It’s now a basic-needs hub.”

It was at a pantry at Stony Brook University where Jocelyn Chen, a volunteer there, spoke of her poverty naps. She said many students are unable to visit the food pantry between classes, or to go off campus to find cheap food without a car.

“When you’re in class for, like, three hours, it’s hard to concentrate when you’re hungry,” she said. Back at the dorm, she explained, it’s easier to take “poverty naps” than to forage for something to eat.

Programs like Share Meals and Swipe Out Hunger (both of which let students donate their extra dining hall meal swipes to those in need) are helping. Additionally, there’s a national movement to redirect unused food from campus dining halls and corporate events.

At George Fox University in Oregon, for example, its dining hall operator, Bon Appétit Management Co., now donates unused food to several campus “hospitality tables.”

Sodexo USA, one of the nation’s largest college dining hall operators, has produced a successful pilot program at Northern Arizona University, where students are alerted about leftovers from catered events. This is now an option to any of the colleges that use its services.

In New York, CUNY has focused on bringing fresh produce directly to students. In 2018, the urban farm at Kingsborough Community College produced 3,000 pounds of food that was handed out to over 1,000 students. Eligible Brooklyn College students can now pick up a box of fresh veggies weekly.

Also, the city’s Sanitation Department recently opened a food donation portal for nonprofit groups through its donateNYC program. In March, Guttman Community College in Manhattan became the first college to receive a food donation through the portal, a department spokeswoman said.

Although these initiatives seem disparate, there are some legislative efforts that could have a more stabilizing effect on student hunger.

The Debt-Free College Act, which aims to cover all costs associated with attending a public college, was reintroduced in the Senate this year. Advocates are also hoping Congress expands the National School Lunch Program to higher education.

Increasing federal education funding should be part of the presidential election discussion, said Goldrick-Rab, who cited a higher education plan put out by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is running for president.

If no progress is made, Goldrick-Rab said, “existing investments in financial aid will be undermined as students drop out simply because they don’t have enough to eat.”

NEW YORK — In the coming weeks, thousands of college students will walk across a stage and proudly accept their diplomas.

Hunger on campus: Pay tuition or eat

A survey released this week by Temple University’s Hope Center for College, Community and Justice indicated that 45% of student respondents from over 100 institutions said they had been food insecure in the past 30 days. In New York, the nonprofit found that among City University of New York (CUNY) students, 48% had been food insecure in the past 30 days.

Although the college food-pantry movement is well underway, as there are now over 700 members at the College and University Food Bank Alliance, efforts have recently expanded to include redistributing leftover food from dining halls and catered events, making students eligible for food stamps and other benefits, and perhaps most important, changing national and state education funding to cover living expenses, not just tuition.

“The hunger movement has been centered around food banks, but that is now changing as people focus on prevention,” said Sara Goldrick-Rab, the founder of the Hope Center and a Temple University professor.

Calvin Ramsay amassed “massive amounts of debt” while attending NYU. Being the first person from his family to go to college, he said he did not fully understand how much debt he was going into with his student loans. After two years on campus, Ramsay said he moved back home to Queens and started to use Share Meals, a digital platform created in 2013 that informs students about free food on campus.

Ramsay said that he will need to borrow about $40,000 more to graduate, but he is unwilling to take on more debt to do so. “Why do I need to go into debt,” he said, “to eat?”

CUNY has discovered that signing up students for SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, has helped. In 2009, the school system brought in Single Stop USA, a nonprofit that connects individuals with social services. Since then, the nonprofit and other partners have served over 122,000 CUNY students, each of whom have received about $3,000 worth of benefits each year, said Sarah Crawford, the nonprofit’s national education director.

It was at a pantry at SUNY Stony Brook where Jocelyn Chen, a volunteer there, spoke of her poverty naps. She said that many students are unable to visit the food pantry between classes, or to go off campus to find cheap food without a car.

At Oregon’s George Fox University, for example, its dining hall operator, Bon Appétit Management Co., now donates unused food to several campus “hospitality tables.”

Also, the city Department of Sanitation recently launched a food donation portal for nonprofits through its donateNYC program. In March, Guttman Community College in Manhattan became the first college to receive a food donation through the portal, a department spokeswoman said.

The Debt-Free College Act, which aims to cover all costs associated with attending a public college, was reintroduced this year. Advocates are also hoping Congress expands the National School Lunch Program to higher education.

Boosting federal education funding should be part of the presidential election discussion, said Goldrick-Rab, who cited a higher education plan put out by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is running for president.

This article originally appeared in <a id="be3fe860-2b44-3366-a4af-426a495c11f9" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/nyregion/hunger-college-food-insecurity.html">The New York Times</a>.

The developer, Hope Street Capital, believes that those working at companies in Dumbo who cannot afford to pay average Dumbo prices will be eager to buy units at 98 Front Street, where studios will start at $595,000 and one-bedrooms at $795,000.

“What we’re doing is intentional,” said Sha Dinour, a partner at Hope Street Capital. “We looked at what’s underserved in Dumbo, and it’s homes available for under $1 million.”

Many of the listings in the neighborhood tend to be for larger apartments, with two or more bedrooms. This building will have many studio and one-bedroom units, but with more than 100 layouts, it will cater to a variety of likely buyers; Dinour expects they will include single people, couples and families with children.

In the past couple decades, Dumbo has changed from a sleepy, bohemian neighborhood to a booming office area. It is part of the Brooklyn Tech Triangle, which includes the Navy Yard and downtown Brooklyn, and is home to some 500 technology and creative companies, according to the nonprofit Dumbo Improvement District. Employment at tech firms throughout Brooklyn has increased 57% since 2009, making it one of the fastest growing employment sectors in the borough, according to a report by the state comptroller’s office. The number of employees in the Brooklyn Tech Triangle is expected to reach about 36,000 by 2020.

Dinour believes that many of these employees want to live in Dumbo but can’t afford the hefty prices that have become the norm. In a recent search for homes on nytimes.com/real-estate, only five of the 51 listings were less than $1 million, while 27 were priced at more than $2 million.

“I think there’s a serious void in the Dumbo market for a high-end product with a reasonable price threshold,” he said. “The traffic at rush hour is amazing, packed with young professionals. I’m betting some of them want to live where they work.”

That said, there will also be higher-priced homes in the 165-unit building, including two-bedroom units starting at $1.38 million and three- and four-bedroom homes ranging from $1.85 to more than $4 million.

The building, designed by ODA New York, will be LEED certified when it is completed in the spring of 2020. And the amenities, such as those of other high-end condominiums, will include a steam room, an indoor saltwater pool and spa, and a fitness center equipped with Peloton exercise bikes. The ground-floor lobby will connect to a lounge and coworking space via a courtyard garden with a reflecting pool. The 7,000-square-foot rooftop terrace will have three outdoor kitchens, a bocce court and an outdoor screening and fitness area. Residents will be able to access the building with their cellphones using Latch, a keyless entry system, and Butterfly MX, an intercom system.

The units’ interiors will have windows that are nearly 9 feet tall and are insulated and sound-attenuated, as the building sits next to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Kitchens will be equipped with Bosch refrigerators, dishwashers, cooktops and ovens.

The neighborhood is now so popular, it has become a tourist magnet, and some streets have been mobbed with throngs of visitors carrying selfie sticks to take photos of themselves with the Manhattan or Brooklyn bridges as a backdrop. But residents know which corners to avoid (including Washington and Water streets), said Rita van Straten, a broker at Douglas Elliman and a former Dumbo resident.

Van Straten, who is not associated with sales at 98 Front Street, said she believes there is an appetite for homes under $1 million. Her Dumbo clients have included many empty-nesters and young professionals, she said, adding, “Dumbo has a very different feel than downtown Brooklyn, so people who look for homes here tend to only want to look at Dumbo homes.”

Moreover, the Brooklyn condominium market has remained relatively stable, she noted, compared to that in parts of Manhattan, where sales have slowed. “There was a lot of hesitation among buyers last year, but it feels like there’s less uncertainty now,” she said. “Interest rates are stable, so we’re starting to see more transactions that are completed.”

But 98 Front Street will soon have competition: a mixed-use complex called Front and York, which will rise in a former parking lot at 85 Jay St. The project, developed by CIM and LIVWRK, and designed by Morris Adjmi Architects, will be two towers with a mix of more than 700 condominium and rental units.

Residents will have access to a private park designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, the same firm that designed nearby Brooklyn Bridge Park — and according to a spokesman, it will likely be “one of the city’s largest private parks.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="62e5ae7a-c5e5-4c70-a9c4-2f045f974b4f" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/realestate/for-dumbo-a-different-kind-of-condo.html">The New York Times</a>.

(The High End): NEW YORK — With a median sales price close to $2 million, the Dumbo neighborhood in Brooklyn routinely finds itself on lists of the New York City’s most expensive neighborhoods. One developer is hoping to counter that trend by building condos that are lower in price than those typically sold in the area.

For Dumbo, a different kind of condo

Ryoko Okada, a principal and director of interior architecture and design at ODA New York, said she tapped into the Japanese aesthetics of “wabi-sabi,” or the art of finding beauty in imperfection, when designing 561 Pacific.

“It’s about finding natural materials that have an unconscious aesthetic,” she said of the many warm brown and gray materials she chose. The wood, stone, concrete and steel used in the interior all have knots and grains with subtle imperfections, some of which will also change over time, she said. “It’s about celebrating what’s naturally incomplete.”

Okada, a native of Japan, said the wooden slats found in the entryway of the 63-unit building resembles “koshi,” or wooden lattice entryways and window coverings found in traditional wooden townhouses in Japan called “machiya.” It allows some light in, but also keeps the entryway private, Okada said.

The hallway in the ground-level lobby lounge is made with light gray concrete-look porcelain tile, with dark solid wood and metal inlays separating each slab. This is inspired by “tobi-ishi,” or steppingstone, and “roji,” a lush, garden path that leads to a teahouse. Both are Japanese design features that make you consciously focus on where you are walking and block the outer world.

“I thought it would be great if residents can use the same thought process, where you can consciously start decompressing from the outside chaos when you get home,” Okada said.

The building is in a particularly hectic area, just a block from the major traffic intersection of Atlantic, Flatbush and Fourth avenues, and close to the Barclays Center and the Atlantic Terminal and Atlantic Center shopping complexes.

Developed by Adam America Real Estate, the 12-story building will offer studios from $550,000, one-bedrooms from $850,000, two bedrooms from $1.375 million, and three-bedrooms from $2.275 million. Over a third of the apartments will come with private outdoor space. Sales start later this month.

Building amenities include a gym, a playroom, a rooftop sun deck with barbecue and dining stations, and bike storage. Sixteen parking spaces will be available for purchase for $150,000 each.

The building, expected to be finished early next year, will also have about 7,000-square-feet of ground floor retail space available.

Like other parts of the city, the Brooklyn condominium market was slower in the fall and winter months, but the mood has been rather upbeat from the start of the year, said Brendan Aguayo, senior vice president and a director at Halstead Property Development Marketing, the firm in charge of sales. Aguayo said he has seen a large increase in traffic, demand and deal velocity as interest rates have stabilized.

“Brooklyn condominium buyers are very sophisticated,” Aguayo said, noting their desire for “everything,” including high-end interior finishes, proximity to transportation and a vibrant neighborhood.

Being within easy walking distance to Park Slope, Fort Greene, Gowanus and downtown Brooklyn will likely appeal to many buyers, Aguayo said.

“I think this building is on the forefront of the shift happening on Fourth Avenue and the renaissance of this corridor,” he said, referring to an anticipated rezoning of nearby Gowanus.

“Wabi-sabi embraces the imperfect and accepts that change happens,” Okada said when describing the building’s Japanese design inspiration. It’s a notion that works extremely well for a calm, welcoming home, but is undoubtedly hard for some neighbors to swallow as their immediate surrounding gets denser.

For those nostalgic for the Episcopal church that once stood here, one relic remains. A well-preserved mosaic tile that signaled the prominence of the church, which closed in 2010, still exists in the northwest subway exit on the corner of Pacific and Fourth Avenue.

This article originally appeared in <a id="947a6830-27c1-4435-a04e-bfba83a0dabd" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/realestate/a-condo-inspired-by-japanese-aesthetics.html">The New York Times</a>.

(The High End): NEW YORK — The Church of the Redeemer, which was built in 1866 in Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill, mirrored the Gothic style of medieval churches in Europe. The condominium building rising in its place, however, looks toward Japan for inspiration.

A condo inspired by Japanese aesthetics

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Kaya Laterman

Articles written by the author

A New Tower Opens on the Domino Site in Williamsburg

A deadline is approaching for elevator improvements

A deadline is approaching for elevator improvements

Hunger on campus: Pay tuition or eat

Hunger on campus: Pay tuition or eat

For Dumbo, a different kind of condo

A condo inspired by Japanese aesthetics