When Jessi Arrington and Creighton Mershon moved from Dumbo to Prospect Lefferts Gardens this year, the couple weighed two big trade-offs.
They could rent a bigger, older walkup in the townhouse-heavy neighborhood, or opt for a small pad in a brand-new building with stunning views and a play area for their 2-year-old daughter, Dottie Mae.
The second, more weighty conundrum: Could they make peace with becoming gentrifiers? The smaller home with luxurious perks was in the Parkline, a controversial 24-story rental building at 626 Flatbush Ave. that enraged area residents with its height when it was first proposed.
“We made a life decision that we needed to take money off our rent, which meant moving further into Brooklyn,” says Arrington, 38, who, with Merson, runs a Gowanus co-working space called Small City. “Somebody is going to move into that [Parkline] apartment. If it’s us, we can try to become a part of the neighborhood as much as anyone could.”
So the couple and Dottie Mae did just that, moving into one of the Parkline’s 500-square-foot studios; current rents in the building start at $2,012 and top out at $4,430.
The family’s fraught decision signals the broader shifts that have swept over Flatbush Avenue in the last decade.
The 10-mile-long stretch connects the East River to Jamaica Bay; it can be the busiest street in Brooklyn, funneling the traffic pouring over the Manhattan Bridge into the borough. The central artery then descends from Downtown Brooklyn’s year-old skyscrapers and shopping centers to a hive of activity around the Barclays Center. It calms, passing through Prospect Park, then bisects Prospect Lefferts Gardens and the Flatbush neighborhood itself — relatively quiet, Caribbean-heavy enclaves where you can find some of the best roti and Doubles in the city.
The contrast between northern and southern Flatbush Avenue is striking, but parallel trends emerge. Downtown Brooklyn is booming with new construction like mixed-use City Point, which opened this year with an Alamo Drafthouse movie theater, Trader Joe’s, Target and more. Just a few miles down the road, the historic Kings Theatre, sparkling after a $95 million restoration, is spurring area development since its reopening in 2015.
Across the street from City Point and next door to Junior’s iconic cheesecake outpost, construction began last month on 9 DeKalb Ave., which will be Brooklyn’s tallest building. With 73 stories rising 1,066 feet and housing 500 rentals, the SHoP Architects-designed tower will dwarf everything nearby. In a merging of old and new, developers JDS and the Chetrit Group are incorporating the landmarked Dime Savings Bank into the supertall tower’s base and will lease it to a retail tenant when the project is completed in 2020.
About four blocks south, Alloy Development wants to redevelop an entire city block at 80 Flatbush Ave. with a 38-story building featuring residential, office and retail components, as well as a 74-story mixed-use building. The project will accommodate two schools for 700 students, plus 900 new housing units (both condos and rentals).
Neighborhood residents have protested the project, which they say will drastically overshadow area townhomes and pack even more people into the Barclays Center subway stop’s already burdened rush hour crowds. Last month, the Boerum Hill Association launched a petition with the tagline, “No Towers Over Brownstone Brooklyn.”
Alloy president AJ Pires said in an email that “robust community feedback” will make 80 Flatbush better; he adds that it has “great architecture” and will “add to the vibrancy of the area.” He expects the project to start the city’s public review process this year, with the first phase set to finish by 2022.
The main drag looked vastly different even a decade ago.
“Growing up, there was no reason to go to Flatbush Avenue as a destination,” says Williamsburg native Dave Maundrell, new developments head at brokerage Citi Habitats. “It was how you got to south Brooklyn when the BQE was jammed.”
Now, he sees the thoroughfare developing into a new-construction hub on par with Long Island City — not quite as tall and dense as Manhattan, but still brimming with glassy towers and luxury condos. Citi Habitats is marketing two projects that will help reshape it. One Flatbush, a 19-story, 183-rental building on the once-drab Fulton Street corner. The building is slated to open in early 2018 with about 19,000 square feet of retail on the first two floors and apartments averaging 674 square feet apiece. Pricing hasn’t yet been announced, but Citi Habitats says apartments in the area range from $2,715 to $7,578 per month.
Across from Barclays Center, 470 Dean St. is on the rise, also expected to open next year. It’ll have 63 rentals, 6,000 square feet of retail and a 110-car underground garage. Nearby rents run between $2,136 and $4,382.
It’ll be competing with 461 Dean, which hugs the Barclays Center and, at 32 stories, opened in 2016 as the world’s tallest modular building. That 363-unit rental, where prices range from $2,311 to $5,907, is part of the “city within a city” megadevelopment around Barclays Center called Pacific Park.
Big brands are also coming for Flatbush Avenue. Take Whole Foods’ cheaper 365 offshoot, coming to the base of the 32-story rental 300 Ashland Place ($2,563 to $5,166 per month). Apple just signed a 10-year lease for its second Brooklyn location for 12,000 square feet in the same space.
The shift means goodbye to bodegas and hardware stores. Already the avenue has lost some of both its pre- and post-gentrification gems: Christie’s, a beloved Jamaican patty shop down the street from Barclays, closed in 2014 after 50 years in business; across the street, beloved Franny’s, a 2004-opened Park Slope pizza place, closed for good in August.
Similar patterns have emerged along Flatbush Avenue in Prospect Lefferts Gardens and Flatbush.
“All the small businesses, you’re starting to see them shut down because they can’t afford it,” says Flatbush native Benjamin Daniel, a 34-year-old teacher who moved to Marine Park in 2014 after being priced out of his old neighborhood.
Daniel, who literally wears neighborhood pride on his sleeve with tattoos of Kings Theatre and other area landmarks, embraces some of the changes: He brought his grandmother to see Diana Ross when the concert hall reopened. “There’s pros and cons to it,” he says. “The sad part is that people originally from the neighborhood don’t make it here … but it’s good to see the progress.”
A hotel, with a bar, is under construction across the street from the theater, and realtors say demand for the area is growing.
In fact, they add, it’s surprising it took so long for the stretch of Flatbush southeast of Prospect Park to step into the spotlight. After all, it’s right on the B and Q trains and just as picturesque as parts as Park Slope.
“It’s like when people discovered there was a Manhattan above 96th Street,” says Lois Thompson of Corcoran. “It’s still mom-and-pop, so there’s still more flavor.”
While residential rents there are cheaper than in Flatbush’s Downtown Brooklyn reaches — just look at the Parkline — Thompson adds that she’s still seen 10 percent increases every year for the past five years.
“I take offense to people looking at Flatbush and saying it’s up and coming,” she said.
“Up and coming where? It’s already there.”