One could be forgiven, then, for letting loose a cartoonish head-spinning double-take at the sight of the Gowanus area today, as luxury high-rises filled with haughty amenities seem to be rising on almost every block, including those immediately surrounding the canal, which is in the process of an extensive cleanup designed to convert this watery pit of despair into a much-desired amenity less than five years hence.<\/p>\n
A 2013 plan from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean the canal as part of its Superfund program, combined with a rezoning of the area passed by the City Council in 2021<\/a>, has led to a complete transformation of Gowanus, with the massive canal cleanup effort augmented by the development of approximately 8,500 new residential units \u2014 over 3,000 of them affordable \u2014 plus a park and enough new retail to turn the neighborhood into an enviable luxury living destination.<\/p>\n Numerous factors account for Gowanus\u2019 current desirability. Christopher Peck, senior managing director and co-head of the New York office for JLL<\/a>, which has capitalized many of the area\u2019s new projects, put it best when he noted that Gowanus is the \u201chole in the doughnut\u201d between Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Downtown Brooklyn and Cobble Hill.<\/p>\n \u201cMost city-sponsored rezonings are large swaths of space that don\u2019t have noticeable adjacencies and don\u2019t connect a pre-existing established neighborhood with another pre-existing established neighborhood,\u201d said Peck, who notes that his firm\u2019s first Gowanus deal came in 2011, when \u201cland was trading for $40 a foot.\u201d (That same land is likely to hover around $300 a square foot today, according to JLL.)<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at the Court Square rezoning 10 years ago in Long Island City, that was an industrial wasteland where they were basically creating a neighborhood,\u201d said Peck. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t that connectivity like in Gowanus. That made it a lot easier to envision the imminent success of the placemaking element, because immediately adjacent to some of the projects we worked on were $7 million brownstones in Carroll Gardens.\u201d<\/p>\n Charney Companies<\/a> and Tavros Capital<\/a> are two of the area\u2019s more active developers.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Gowanus Wharf project from Charney and Tavros will create an interconnected residential campus of sorts, featuring five separate luxury residential rental projects with a slew of amenities.<\/p>\n The largest of these will be the 27-story 175 Third Street, a 1.1 million-square-foot project with over 1,000 rental apartments, approximately 250 of them designated affordable. Bjarke Ingels Group<\/a> designed the project, which will include a 28,000-square-foot public waterfront park designed in collaboration with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. The building, which will have frontage on both Third Avenue and along the Gowanus Canal, is expected to be completed by 2029 and begin leasing by 2030. Yes, the canal is now a marketing tool.<\/p>\n The health club chain\/lifestyle brand Life Time<\/a> has taken over 85,000 square feet<\/a> in the building for what it calls an \u201cathletic country club,\u201d a perfect example of how much the area, and the perception of the area, has changed in such a short amount of time.<\/p>\n The other buildings in Gowanus Wharf will include Union Channel at 240 Third Avenue, Douglass Port at 251 Douglass Street, and Nevins Landing North and South at 310 and 340 Nevins Street, respectively. Union Channel includes 224 residential units and was completed in early 2025. Douglass Port will include 260 units and is scheduled for completion in the middle of this year. Nevins Landing North and South will offer 348 and 306 units, respectively, and should begin leasing in 2027. Both of the Nevins Landing buildings include 225 feet of frontage along the canal.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n When all their Gowanus projects are complete, Charney and Tavros will have developed over 2.2 million square feet and over 2,200 residences in Gowanus, making them the area\u2019s largest developers.<\/p>\n Justin Pelsinger, chief operating officer and a partner at Charney Companies, noted that proximity to other neighborhoods was just one aspect of Gowanus that made it ripe for development.<\/p>\n \u201cGowanus always had the bones of a residential area,\u201d said Pelsinger. \u201cIt has really good transportation and walkability. It\u2019s 25 minutes from Manhattan, has access to multiple subway lines, and there are restaurants, convenience stores, grocery stores and a lot of commercial buildings. The whole area was essentially one-story manufacturing buildings, which are businesses that could move to another location with less valuable real estate.\u201d<\/p>\n Pelsinger notes that Charney\u2019s Union Channel was initially intended to be a stand-alone project for the company. But, as development progressed, the benefits and opportunities presented by Gowanus became more apparent, inspiring the company to transform one building into a mini-neighborhood all its own.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a sense for what we thought the demand was, given the proximity to Park Slope and Carroll Gardens,\u201d said Pelsinger. \u201cSo we really only started with one building. But, once we got into the area, the next property came up for sale. It\u2019s very challenging, given where land prices are, to find pieces of land that actually pencil out in other areas of the city, especially as a rental building with affordable housing. So when another project came along of a similar size to our first \u2014 260 units, 250,000 square feet \u2014 we thought, \u2018Why not do the two of them together?\u2019 They\u2019re actually sister buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the course of roughly three years, this kismet of availability happened a few more times, until the company was dominating new development in the neighborhood. And, while proximity to other high-end areas made Gowanus desirable, so did certain limitations attached to those areas.<\/p>\n \u201cLiving in brownstone Brooklyn is a wonderful way to live, but there\u2019s no density,\u201d said Colin Rankowitz, a partner at Tavros. \u201cIt\u2019s all landmarked in Park Slope and Cobble Hill. You can\u2019t really build anything new, so very few buildings there have amenities, or doormen, or the gym that people have become accustomed to in luxury buildings. If people are looking for modern products, especially with views \u2014 because everything is so height-restricted in those areas \u2014 there really isn\u2019t much supply.\u201d<\/p>\n Chris Fogarty is a director at Fogarty Finger<\/a>, the architect for all the Charney\/Tavros projects in Gowanus except for 175 Third Street.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fogarty notes that the area\u2019s prospects have been assisted by the limitations of the surrounding areas.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder Mayor Bloomberg, Park Slope, Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill all got down-zoned,\u201d said Fogarty. \u201cThere was a lot of development done under Bloomberg in different areas, but he limited development in these low-rise neighborhoods. If you look at a map of Brooklyn, Gowanus is very much the odd one out nowadays when compared to the incredible neighborhoods around it. But [buildings in] those neighborhoods can\u2019t go up.\u201d<\/p>\n The proximity to much-desired neighborhoods, combined with the restrictions hemming in those areas, is bringing strong investment to the area.<\/p>\n Jay Greenberg is a principal for acquisitions at Z&G Property Group, a commercial real estate investment and property management firm. While Greenberg himself lives in Carroll Gardens and the firm has investments throughout Brooklyn \u2014 including in Williamsburg, Carroll Gardens, Fort Greene and Brooklyn Heights \u2014 Z&G began investing in Gowanus just last year.<\/p>\n Now, the company owns 130 Second Street, a multifamily rental property with 132 apartments that was completed in 2025, and 202 Eighth Street, a rental property with 51 apartments that was completed in 2012 and acquired by Z&G in April 2025.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cGowanus really stands to benefit as a neighborhood by producing best-in-class multifamily buildings adjacent to the best neighborhoods in Brooklyn that are extremely supply constrained,\u201d said Greenberg, explaining the area\u2019s investment appeal. \u201cCarroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill and Park Slope are our favorite neighborhoods in Brooklyn, but they don\u2019t have new product. They have older buildings where you wind up with the apartments being converted from railroads, with challenging layouts that aren\u2019t really conducive for families. So, when you start thinking about the idea of new construction in or around a neighborhood, [Gowanus is] where people are going to want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n Like many previously industrial neighborhoods, Gowanus had a large artist presence in its various lofts and industrial buildings. One example was the Mecha Sonic Sessions<\/a>, a two-day annual multi-sensory event that took place for several years at a metal shop off the Smith-Ninth Street subway station that combined musical instruments \u2014 some homemade \u2014 and science experiments that often found those instruments destroyed by the end of the evening.<\/p>\n While that event has since moved to East Williamsburg, the current development craze and the zoning that led to it took steps to ensure that the neighborhood\u2019s artistic aura \u2014 the very reason many people want to move there in the first place \u2014 will remain.<\/p>\n The area rezoning, for instance, included a provision called the Gowanus Mixed Use Incentive, which provides developers with additional density for their projects in exchange for certain community benefit uses, such as providing affordable studio space to artists.\u00a0<\/p>\n Arts Gowanus, a 30-year-old advocacy and arts programming organization for area artists, had lobbied with then-Councilman Brad Lander for artist benefits during the zoning\u2019s land-use review, and wound up reaching community benefits agreements with 11 area developers.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are artist workspaces that are drastically below market rate. We got about 30,000 square feet in 11 different sites for affordable artist studios,\u201d said Johnny Thornton, executive director of Arts Gowanus. \u201cWe got about 100 to 120 affordable artist studios that are perpetually affordable \u2014 they can only raise 2 percent a year after the second year, so it would take them a long time to get to market rate. So we\u2019re pretty excited about the affordability that they offer artists in the community, and we also have a community center coming online, probably in 2027, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Given the area\u2019s artistic history and the opportunity to preliminarily define the nature of the multifamily environment, some developers are combining the two to create creatively inspired living spaces.<\/p>\n Development firm Tankhouse<\/a>, led by principals with primarily architectural backgrounds, won the 2025 Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize, a biennial award presented by the Illinois Institute of Technology that recognizes excellence in built works of architecture in the Americas, for the 18-unit condo 450 Warren Street in nearby Boerum Hill. The award centered on the property\u2019s integration of indoor and outdoor space.<\/p>\n The company, along with Global Holdings<\/a> and MacArthur Holdings<\/a>, is currently working on Anagram Gowanus at 450 Union Street. The 20-story, 158-unit mixed-use tower will offer studios to three-bedrooms along with amenities such as fitness studios and rooftop terraces, and a 5,700-square-foot waterfront esplanade. (Anagram is a Global Holdings brand, with four properties to date in Manhattan.)\u00a0<\/p>\n The project is expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2027.<\/p>\n Sam Zeif, a project manager at Tankhouse, notes that Gowanus was primed for a creative, community-oriented approach to multifamily housing.<\/p>\n \u201cTankhouse\u2019s approach is pretty specific,\u201d said Zeif. \u201cWe are committed to working in a small radius around where we live and work. All of us live in Brooklyn and we build in Brooklyn. We know and care about the area, and four out of the five of us are registered architects. So we come from a place of knowing that architecture and design can, when integrated in the right way, be really instrumental in defining what it is to live in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n Given that Gowanus is still finding its way as a residential area, the company saw area housing as something of a blank canvas.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe found ways to bring in a lot of the elemental qualities of a home which you\u2019d often find outside the city,\u201d said Zeif. \u201cThings like exterior space, having a front stoop, having multiple exposures. All of our projects \u2014 every single home we\u2019ve built \u2014 has at least two orientations, and sometimes three or four, plus the ability to open a couple of windows and ventilate your home, the ability to have a sequence of spaces from the street to your front door, and the ability to create community within a building through really intentionally created public spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n But, even with all the exciting prospects for the growing neighborhood, the canal still leaves area developers and property managers with challenges beyond what they\u2019d need to handle in other evolving areas.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are environmental responsibilities and testing that needs to be done on an ongoing basis that aren\u2019t necessarily applicable to other neighborhoods due to the Gowanus Canal cleanup process,\u201d said Z&G Property Group\u2019s Greenberg. \u201cAir quality monitoring, water quality monitoring, flood mitigation \u2014 those are all things we have to worry about by being around the canal. You have to take those precautions, because these properties have risks based on their geography.\u201d<\/p>\n The risks of storm damage and flooding, in particular, must still be addressed for properties adjacent to the canal.<\/p>\n Whitney Boykin is a senior associate architect with DeSimone Consulting Engineering<\/a>. He has worked in what he describes as a technical architect role on several projects in Gowanus, including at 420 Carroll Street, the Majestic at 545 Sackett Street, and Society Brooklyn at 500 DeGraw Street and 504 Sackett Street.<\/p>\n Boykin is charged with helping to mitigate the increased risk of storm and flood damage.<\/p>\n \u201cWe spend a lot of time looking at resiliency and waterproofing to a greater degree than we have to in areas less prone to storm damage,\u201d said Boykin. \u201cThe canal is one place where the water levels can rise, and the buildings adjoining the canal could be at or below the design flood elevation. So this is an issue with the flood plain.\u201d<\/p>\n For 420 Carroll, a 360-unit mixed-use building that the Domain Companies<\/a> built along the banks of the canal, DeSimone had to ensure that the foundation was deeper than usual.<\/p>\n \u201cThe building structure had to be sensitive to potential hydrostatic loads from flood conditions or elevated water levels,\u201d said Boykin. \u201cWe want to isolate the interior of the building from any potential unknowns that may exist given the legacy of the project by compartmentalizing the below-grade enclosure of the building, so that there\u2019s no opportunity for gas or leaching of unknown pollutants into the building.\u201d<\/p>\n Boykin needed to come up with worst-case scenarios for potential flooding, and defend against them.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAll of the low-grade conditions of the building are wrapped in a bathtub of waterproofing up to the design flood elevation,\u201d said Boykin. \u201cSo, in concept, the water level can rise, but it can never get into the building.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Given that the Gowanus rezoning passed in 2021, it\u2019s somewhat remarkable that most of the new development seems on track to be completed around 2030, if not sooner.<\/p>\n Anita Laremont, a partner in the real estate division at Fried Frank<\/a> and former chair of the New York City Planning Commission, notes that certain policy changes helped supercharge the timing of the Gowanus revamp.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think you will find any other large-scale rezoning where you get development like this at this pace,\u201d said Laremont, who credits the rapid pace, at least in part, to the elimination of the state\u2019s 421a development tax benefit in 2022. \u201cPeople were trying to vest for the old 421a<\/a>, which is obviously much better than [its replacement] 485x<\/a>. So there was a built-in incentive to get moving quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n Laremont also mentions that given all the encouraging factors, development in Gowanus has presented as low-risk for developers.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is in a location in Brooklyn that people think is really marketable and valuable,\u201d said Laremont. \u201cDevelopers think, \u2018If you build it, they will come.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Retail](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/420-Blackbirds-KM_260116_0007-WEB.jpg\" "\\"Gowanus")
Retail such as Four & Twenty Blackbirds, a pie vendor, have benefited from Gowanus\u2019 residential boom. Katherine Marks<\/p>\n