Developers snapped up a block-long bunch of property beside the Gowanus Canal for a massive sum, according to a real estate news outlet.
Kushner Companies and Livwrk, which are turning the former Watchtower buildings in Dumbo into a sprawling tech campus, bought the four lots across Third Street from Whole Foods Market for $70-80 million, The Real Deal reported. The site between Third Avenue and the fetid inlet that floods with sewage during heavy rains is zoned for industrial use and Councilman Brad Lander (D–Gowanus) has emphasized that he will oppose any attempt to build residential projects in the place of neighborhood factories and warehouses.
“Let me be clear,” Lander wrote in a recent statement about the doomed Kentile Floors sign. “Those who are paying big price tags for industrial buildings in Gowanus and demolishing historic structures on the assumption that they will be able to build market-rate condo buildings like those on Fourth Avenue are making a big mistake.”
The lots currently house two one-story buildings and a Verizon parking lot. Current zoning caps what could be built there at 60 feet. Across the canal at 365 Bond St., developer Lightstone Group is plodding ahead with work on its 700-apartment luxury housing project.
Kushner Companies declined to comment through a rep.
