Carter's Review

To some One Brooklyn Bridge Park at 360 Furman Street in Brooklyn Heights may conjure a beached catamaran aircraft carrier.  It is huge and looms over the harbor.  It has appropriately been painted battleship gray.

It is, of course, no "Bladerunner" pipe-dream, but the largest conversion of a commercial building into a residential one in Brooklyn, and, more importantly, a rather daring real estate gamble as one side of the project is tucked against the Brooklyn Queens Expressway.

The other side fronts on the harbor and Governors Island and has staggering vistas of Lower Manhattan as well as some of the towers of Jersey City as it is at the south end of the very large Brooklyn Bridge Park that is south of the Brooklyn Bridge.

It is the westernmost terrain of Brooklyn Heights, poetically, and physically.

A former shipping center for the printing operations of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the building, which was built in 1928, was acquired in 2006 by RAL Companies, a Brooklyn-based development company.

Vincent Cangelosi of Creative Design associates was the architect for the building’s 2008 conversion.  The 14-story building contains 449 condominium apartments.

Bottom Line

One Brooklyn Bridge Park is Brooklyn’s answer to Manhattan’s Battery Park City: luxury waterfront living with spectacular views and amenities galore.  It is not nestled right next to the Brooklyn Bridge, but right beneath the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and Brooklyn Heights and it is not far from Atlantic Avenue, famous for its restaurants, and Governors Island, which is a very short ferry ride away.  The building is also within walking distance of many of the borough's finest restaurants, edgy art galleries, lauded private schools and upscale retail shops.

Description

One Brooklyn Bridge Park is the only residential building located within the 85-acre Brooklyn Bridge Park.

The conversion of One Brooklyn Bridge Park added two floors to the original 12-story building, which also has an address of 2-14 Joralemon Street.  Staircases at the corners of the building were removed and put inside.

It is located at the entrance to Pier 6, which has a playground with Brooklyn's largest sandbox, sprinklers, and wading pools, as well as ferry service to Governors Island, a dog run, sand volleyball court, and a bike and a foot path that connects all sections of the Park.

Amenities

In addition to a full-time concierge and doorman and a large cold-storage room, the lobby has multiple entrances from Furman Street, Joralemon Street and Atlantic Avenue, which makes it very accessible and is quite unusual. 

The building has a 500-car garage, two landscaped garden terraces, conference and meeting rooms, a billiards room, a piano room, a gym, a yoga room, a golf simulator, a video lounge, a screening room, a children's playroom, a children's art room, and a bicycle room. 

It also has a Zipcar location, a shuttle service, and a live-in superintendent and maid service is available.

Additional features include indoor virtual golf and driving range, an outdoor putting green, and onsite valet and concierge. The building also has 70,000 square feet of onsite retail space.

There is private storage on each floor and the double-height lobby recreates the original "streamlined grandeur of the monumental…building," according to Robert Levine, the head of RAL Companies.

Apartments

The building has many different apartment layouts ranging from studios to three-bedroom units.

Some apartments have terraces and some have 12-foot-high ceilings and 9-foot-high windows.

One that stands out is a two-bedroom apartment on the 12^th floor that has a 24-foot living room and a very long (61 feet) terrace.

Kitchens have Dada cabinetry, Sub-Zero refrigerators, and Bosch ovens and dishwashers.  Baths have Porcher double-vanities and free-standing tubs.

History

One Brooklyn Bridge Park is located in Brooklyn Bridge Park, an 85-acre, waterfront park south of the Brooklyn Bridge, beneath Brooklyn Heights and adjacent to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway.  It can be accessed from Joralemon Street. 

The park’s land was owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and for many years was used for parking before being turned over to the Parks Department.

The park has 40 acres of recreational space and four miles of floating and fixed walkways.

The real estate market would crash a couple of years after the condominium conversion was started, leading to some price reductions, but fortunately financing for the park was unaffected and in 2010 the park was redesigned by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates.

The park, in addition to lawns, recreational areas, beaches, coves and playgrounds, includes six piers - each of which is approximately the size of Bryant Park. Pier 1 and 6 opened in 2010.

To entice apartment buyers to its unusual and out-of-the-way location, the building offered a free Audi sedan to anyone who bought an apartment that cost more $2 million and promised buyers who signed qualifying contracts before September 30 “something much more valuable: a free parking space,” according to a September 9, 2009 article by Ben Muessig in The Brooklyn Paper.

"The German-made sedans retail for more than $30,000, while parking spaces in the building - which is located at the foot of the planned Brooklyn Bridge Park - sell for about $140,000," the article noted, adding that the building contributes $3 million a year in lieu of taxes for upkeep of the adjoining park.

In February 2009, Elizabeth Stribling, who runs a well-known luxury apartment brokerage, closed on her $6.6 million purchase in the building of two penthouse units and a parking space.

And Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture, the partners of Asymptote Architecture, are among the development’s residents and are best known for their vertically undulating design of the residential building 166 Perry Street.

RAL Companies’ other conversion projects include 270 Broadway overlooking City Hall in Manhattan and the former bank building at 90 Franklin Street in Manhattan.