09-07-2025
Can a Spate of New Builds Finally Revitalize Gowanus?
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.
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