The waterfront is zoned for industrial use, which permits back offices and superstores like the Costco at 38th Street, but keeps high-rent houses, lofts and kitsch shops out. City subsidies and renovations also help. We still have reasonable rents here. But prices are on the rise. Vacancy rates for industrial space across the neighborhood's waterfront are in the single digits.
Sunset Park is hot.
But the bulwark of Sunset Park, the Gowanus, is falling apart. Because the project is expensive and difficult, Sunset Park's old-timers may finally get to see their most heartfelt desires realized. The RPA, New York's elite nonprofit planning group, is plotting to rip down the Gowanus and replace it with a tunnel. According to the RPA, the tunnel would soon pay for itself in lower maintenance costs. The project would undo Moses, restoring Sunset Park by removing a highway that the community neither wants nor uses.