The City's New 'it' Districts
Crain's New York Business
By: Eddie Small
As New York lays the groundwork for a major housing push in the years ahead, two neighborhoods that are already seeing huge influxes of residential projects, along with all of the optimism and concern that come with them, are Mott Haven and Gowanus.
The neighborhoods—separated by a borough and more than an hour apart on the subway—took very different paths to arrive at this point. The main factor in Gowanus, Brooklyn, was a long-gestating rezoning, finally passed at the end of 2021, that could bring about 8,000 new housing units to the neighborhood. In Mott Haven in the Bronx, developers have spent years predicting a residential boom, but the neighborhood only recently has seen the development of glossy high-rises like the ones that sprung up in other parts of the city throughout the 2010s.
“It’s certainly feeling like ‘if you build it, they will come’ in Mott Haven, whereas it seems like such a no-brainer for Gowanus,” said Colin Rankowitz, a partner at Tavros Capital, which is developing multiple projects in the Brooklyn neighborhood.
