Mixed-Use or Condo Alternative?: 589 Washington Avenue

Not on your StreetEasy or your New York Times, it's a mixed-use building in Prospect Heights that may have condo alternative written all over it.  A mere block from Clinton Hill, and across the street from some of the area's hottest unfinished condos, 589 Washington Avenue is a 2-story building that's reduced its asking price to $995K.  Presumably delivered vacant, the ground floor's been used as a church and the top floor is an apartment.  With an additional ~1,000 additional buildable square feet, this looks like it could be an interesting alternative to the condos across the street with bidding wars in the $850-$900/sqft range before they're even finished.

At $500/sqft, 589 Washington has some potential, especially with a little price flexibility.  We see someone plopping another floor on here, a roof deck, and making it into a nifty little townhouse on the Ave'.  Sure, it doesn't have a yard, but neither do those condos across the street.  Sure it's 18' wide rather than the full-sized 20' for a rowhouse, but it's also 62' deep.  Sure, it'll need lots of work to really pimp-out.  Although, not far away, the same listing firm Cpex also moved a similar-sized carriage house (also with almost no yard) at 91 Irving Place for $1.2M.  Now we're talking about something in the $900K's.

Heck, even the undeveloped land at Muhammad's Tire Mecca just sold for $1.13M last month, at the corner of Atlantic and Washington Avenue a block away...

If you don't know Washington Avenue and its surroundings, the listing does a decent job of spelling it out for you...

(Don't sleep on that White Castle at Grand and Atlantic!)

Jokers who don't know the neighb' will whine about how far down the hill it is from the 2/3 at Eastern Parkway, but everyone here (as at Hello Living) will be primarily walking a block across Atlantic to the C train at Clinton-Washington on Fulton Street.  (duh!)  And only a few doors down, one of the calling cards of gentrification's hit the avenue... a cigar spot!

We've even heard that some owner financing may be on the table for 589 Washington, so we think a deal worth striking is out there for someone who may not even know this thing's available in the first place.  Gotta love Brooklyn!



Pro's:  Prospect Heights in the house, may beat the condos across the street,  presumably delivered vacant

Con's:  needs work, no interior pics, not everyone wants to be right on the Avenue, won't wow you if you coulda/woulda/didn't cop a 3-floor mixed use in a better location anytime in the past 3 years

Ideally:  won't be low-balled, but for the right price, they'll look back on this one and it'll all make sense post-facto