Brooklyn, NY - Gowanus Village By Powerful Jewish Real-Estate Developer

Brooklyn, NY - A powerful real-estate developer has bought the Jewish Press building near the Gowanus Canal - the latest in a series of moves that could transform the industrial area into a village of housing, stores, art galleries and waterfront esplanades. “We are very excited about the acquisition of the JP site,” said Sara Mirski, spokeswoman for developer Shaya Boymelgreen. “The site provides improved access opportunities to a proposed waterfront esplanade and park” along the canal.

The sale of the building, on Third Avenue between First and Third streets, coupled with construction of a Whole Foods market one block south and development along Fourth Avenue one block east, accelerates the perception that Park Slope is expanding through the old Gowanus neighborhood all the way to the canal.

Boymelgreen has coveted the massive, windowless building since he began snapping up canal-area land two years ago, according to property owners nearby.

With the Jewish Press building in his portfolio, Boymelgreen now controls more than two acres surrounding the canal - land he wants to turn into “Gowanus Village,” a mixed-use neighborhood designed by a glamorous international architect, Enrique Norten.

Boymelgreen would transform the industrial area bounded by the canal, Third Avenue, and Carroll and Third streets into a neighborhood of four- to six-story townhouses and 10-story loft buildings.

Threat to artists

Caught in the middle are the artists who have adopted the neighborhood after being priced out of other creative, low-cost communities.
Down the block from the Jewish Press building and across Third Street from the Whole Foods site, 140 artists rent studios in The Can Factory, a former thermometer factory. The owner of the massive brick building has said he will keep artists there, but artists worry about their colleagues with less-committed landlords.