The Gowanus Canal still smells of sulfur on hot days, and in some places the water can take on a sickly, grayish hue. But that isn’t stopping a wave of developers from erecting glossy new apartment buildings along the notorious Brooklyn waterway.
Throughout Gowanus, residential buildings have risen since the start of the pandemic. There’s a dual-tower apartment complex on Degraw Street, a 360-unit rental building on Carroll Street right against the canal and, on Third Avenue, the first of four new rental buildings planned by a developer.
The neighborhood, which is ringed by the tonier neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill and Park Slope, offers a prime location in Brooklyn with easy access to other parts of the borough and Manhattan. But the canal’s status as a Superfund site, an Environmental Protection Agency designation for toxic areas needing cleanup, had long precluded any major development. Instead, over the past two decades, events like Gowanus Open Studios, where artists welcome the public to their work spaces, and the proliferation of high-ceiling lofts inhabited by creatives, bolstered the area’s reputation as a bootstrapping arts hub.
But a plan to rezone the industrial neighborhood to allow for residential and commercial development is rapidly transforming the area, which is increasingly becoming a magnet for growing families seeking a quieter neighborhood with outdoor amenities.
The measure, called the Gowanus Neighborhood Plan, was adopted by the City Council in 2021 and proposed rezoning an area of more than 80 blocks surrounding the 1.8-mile canal. The plan called for mixed-income, mixed-use spaces, including apartment complexes, retail and public areas. It also allocated millions toward renovating two local public-housing complexes.
Thomas Brodsky, the developer of 499 President Street, a newer building about a block from the canal, said Gowanus presented an opportunity for developers to add density between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, calling the area a “hole in the doughnut.” The 2020 cleanup of the canal, with toxic sludge beginning to be hauled away, also enticed Mr. Brodsky, who began planning for the site the following year.
“As we started processing the site and deciding whether we were going to build here or not, every day we would see the Army Corps of Engineers doing the cleanup,” Mr. Brodsky said. “And I remember one day we came out here and there were ducks swimming in the canal.”
The canal, built in the mid-1800s, served as a critical channel for coal and gas plants, paper mills and other businesses until the mid-1900s. After absorbing more than a century’s worth of industrial pollutants, the E.P.A. made it a Superfund site in 2010.
The agency has reported that canal sediment contains hazardous materials like lead and copper. In June, the E.P.A. released the first five-year review of its progress on the waterway. (The E.P.A. is in charge of cleaning the canal, while New York State is charged with addressing the disused gas plants and paper mills.) Cleanup progress for the canal is on track, with dredging and capping in the upper portion having been completed last summer. More recently, the city has been using “odor-suppressing foam” to mitigate the stench, and excavation for a future sewer overflow tank was completed this spring.
Yet the marketing of several recent projects highlights their proximity to the canal. A new building at 365 Bond Street touts its location near the “waterfront esplanade park,” while the website for 363 Bond notes the area’s “distinctly industrial character.” The Union Channel at Gowanus Wharf, a 224-unit rental building on Third Avenue, even took inspiration from the canal’s bulkhead for its zigzag patterned facade.
“I think that it’s going to be a premier, if not the premier, subdistrict of Brooklyn for new-construction living and for highly amenitized, high-density living environments,” Mr. Brodsky said.
The new developments, such as Union Channel, Society Brooklyn and 420 Carroll Street, offer sprawling gyms, outdoor spaces and swimming pools. They come at a cost: A studio at 420 Carroll, for instance, starts at more than $3,400 per month. At 499 President, market-rate units range from about $3,200 for a studio to $8,182 for a two-bedroom, though 88 of the 350 units are income restricted.
According to StreetEasy, the average monthly rent in Gowanus is nearly $4,700, still lower than in neighboring Carroll Gardens.
Miranda Volpe, an actor and educator, moved into a one-bedroom unit at 499 President in April after relocating from Clinton Hill and considering buildings in Prospect Heights. She shares the apartment with her husband, John Volpe, 63, a physician, paying around $4,700 per month. Concessions, such as a month and a half of free rent and a waiver of the $85 per person monthly amenity fee for the year, were enough to persuade her to sign the lease. She said she’s looking forward to being closer to relatives and enjoying a slower pace of life.
“It’s still very much under construction,” Ms. Volpe, 58, said of Gowanus. “But now that we’re there, some of the things that we appreciate about it are that in the evenings and on the weekends, when the construction isn’t going on, it’s quiet.”
While Gowanus is undergoing rapid change, some are working to preserve its industrial character. Artists who had been living and working in the neighborhood before the development boom worry about their ability to stay.
“Our big fear around the rezoning was that we’ve heard the same song in New York time and time again,” said Johnny Thornton, executive director of the nonprofit Arts Gowanus. He pointed to neighborhoods like SoHo and Williamsburg, onetime artist hubs that have long since outgrown their industrial eras.
Mr. Thornton’s organization has worked with developers to ensure that their buildings offer dedicated work spaces for artists. A fellowship program from Arts Gowanus will provide studios for low-income artists.
“That’s the only way I feel like you can maintain a vibrant neighborhood and keep it exciting,” Mr. Thornton, 45, said from his office, a block from the canal. “If only one group of people can afford studios, then it becomes an echo chamber and it’s kind of boring.”
Chris Weller, who has had studio spaces in Gowanus for more than 20 years, obtained a space at 420 Carroll Street through the organization. But it’s unclear whether these efforts will be enough to preserve an arts community.
“It’s been able to save a little bit of the depth of the neighborhood by keeping different kinds of communities and economic groups there making art as they always have been,” Ms. Weller, 62, said of the nonprofit. “Because otherwise, they were going to all get pushed out.”
The canal itself remains a work in progress. While the new buildings will add density and may make Gowanus more attractive, the environmental issues that long defined the neighborhood aren’t fully resolved.
Andrea Parker, the executive director of the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, is concerned that the real estate boom will disrupt the tenuous cleanup of the canal.
“The canal is substantially cleaner than it was 10 years ago, five years ago, and it’s continuing to get cleaner,” said Ms. Parker, whose organization created a master plan for the city to promote biodiversity and accessibility along the waterway. “It’s definitely interesting to do this kind of cleanup in the middle of a dense urban neighborhood that is also becoming denser.”
The new residential projects in Gowanus are in various stages. Construction is underway both east and west of the canal, including at 450 Union Street, where work is scheduled to finish in 2026. On a recent day in the neighborhood, parents pushed strollers and guided dogs down the sidewalk while construction workers monitored traffic. Friends caught up on a patio outside a coffee shop while mechanics repaired a car in an auto body shop. In the distance, scaffolding swayed gently in the breeze.
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