Fourth Avene & Gowanus: The New Midtown?

Photo via Crains

Is it just me, or are Fourth Avenue and Gowanus becoming "Midtown-lite?" Via Crain's comes the news that AEW Capital Management and developer The Naftali Group have announced plans for a new, 85-unit apartment on 316 Bergen Street (at the corner of 3rd Ave). It will join other behemoths going up in the area, including The Arias and Naftali’s other 104-unit project on 6th Street and 4th Ave.

The developers plan to deck out 316 Bergen with a health club, lounge, courtyard and a roof deck with dope views. At the rate these high-rises are going up, their roofs will be the only ones with a good view. But what we lose in views of the city from our own rooftops, we’ll make up for by gaining the ability to peep through the windows of the “young professionals and families looking for affordable, quality housing, good amenities and access to public transportation,” that the Naftali and AEW expect to live there (oh, like you don’t like a good bit of voyeurism).

These luxury rental properties will come at luxury rental prices though. Apartments in the neighborhood are currently at $54 per-square-foot, up $10 from last year’s prices. If you factor in an ever decreasing number of rentals in the neighborhood (less than 500 new units this year), plus the high prices of development (the 316 Bergen site alone cost $6.7 million), we’re looking at some serious Manhattan-level prices.

I guess it was only a matter of time before Brooklyn moved past taking cues from Lower Manhattan and onto cribbing Midtown’s "tall" style. Below is an artist’s rendition of what we can expect the neighborhood to look like by 2015 (it's from the end of Batteries Not Included -- just go with it).