The Brooklyn Paper / Noelle D'Arrigo

A sign announces the auction.

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The latest attempt to fill one of the last dead zones in Downtown Brooklyn is coming soon with an auction for Boerum Hill property.

Five contiguous lots — two on Atlantic Avenue and three on Pacific Street — between Smith Street and Boerum Place are remarkable mostly for being vacant so long amid an array of bustling antique shops to the east and new condos, bars and restaurants to the west on Atlantic Avenue.

The parking lot, warehouse and empty lot — all across the street from the House of Detention — may look bleak to the average passerby, but for developers, the Feb. 14 auction is a rare chance to acquire land in one of Brooklyn’s hottest areas.

“This is a strategic location,” said Michael Guerra, executive vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman. “It’s a fulcrum. The area pivots around Smith Street, the courts and Atlantic Avenue.”

Not only are these properties blessed with a prime location, they are also zoned for a variety of uses.

The sites are zoned for residential and commercial use, with restrictions for contextual building on Atlantic Avenue. If a developer merges them into one uber-lot, zoning rules would allow bigger buildings than on the individual lots.

“Hopefully, the auction will bring in development that blends in nicely with what’s over there and that caters to residents’ needs,” said Carl Hum, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.

Initially, there was talk that a hotel would rise on the larger Atlantic Avenue site, but those talks collapsed last May.

Besides that snafu, other opportunities to sell the land have come to naught. In November, an auction for the Pacific Street properties didn’t net a buyer. Last year, all the land was for sale with a combined asking price of about $20 million.

Despite previous miscues, the auctioneer knows he’s handling some (potentially) coveted land.

“It’s one of the last remaining opportunities in the Downtown Brooklyn area to acquire a significant assemblage of properties,” said Lawrence Samberg, the managing director of Sheldon Good & Co., the auction house handling the land.

The minimum bid is $16 million.

“The prices have strengthened [in the area] because there were two or three leases signed by national retailers in the immediate vicinity,” like Urban Outfitters, said Brian Leary, managing partner at Massey Knakal. “The value [of the five parcels] may have increased because of it.” (Massey Knakal was the broker for this land last year.)

There’s a consensus that the seller has a hot commodity to unload, but the experts disagree about the effect of the jail, which the city plans to reopen and enlarge.

“The jail will definitely have an effect in terms of the fact that not everyone wants to live next to a jail,” said Hum.

Others disagree.

“I don’t think it has any effect. It hasn’t impacted anything around it. Condos are selling out at record levels all around it,” said Leary.

©2008 The Brooklyn Paper