August 18, 2007: Vol. 30, No. 32

It was Park Slope’s bed and breakfast — minus the breakfast — and now it’s being turned into luxury condos.

Workers have begun renovations to the Lincoln Plaza Hotel — a large, 120-year-old Victorian mansion on Lincoln Place that spent most of the 1980s and ’90s as a quiet brothel.

And not everyone is happy with the respectable new neighbor. (Fond reminiscences for a former hot sheets motel? Of course, this is Park Slope.)

When it was an hourly rate hotel, “it was a dingy place, yes, but added a colorful” aspect to the neighborhood, said Lincoln Place resident Joshua Brown. Like others, Brown said he was sorry to see it transformed into condos that would help raise housing prices throughout the neighborhood.

Indeed, several neighbors said that the last thing Park Slope needs is more condos.

“What we need is an upscale hotel,” said Warren Fox, another neighbor.

Even one woman who said she was mistreated by the hotel staff wished the building could have remained as a lodge.

Jordana Furcht-Rohan recalled how she and her ex-boyfriend once went to the hotel to spend the night and were treated very “disrespectfully” when they asked about the “bed and breakfast” service. It didn’t take the couple long to see what the real deal was.

Still, “it would have been better if they had turned it into a hotel, because it’s hard to find a nice place for guests and relatives to stay nearby,” Furcht-Rohan said.

A hotel is just not in the cards. Developer Louis Greco — best known now for his Richard Meier–designed On Prospect Park project — bought the Lincoln Plaza Hotel this year for $5.5 million, intending to make $3.5 million in renovations to transform its grubby interior into 10 loft-style units that will be ready to occupy next spring.

Similar apartments in Greco’s other loft-style buildings have gone for $1,000 per square foot, making a standard two-bedroom unit cost around $1.5 million.

©2007 The Brooklyn Paper