Perhaps you’ve taken a stroll in Fort Greene Park or across Fulton and happened to look up at the gothic monstrosity that is Brooklyn Tower in the last few months. You probably noticed the bleak and—until relatively recently—scaffolding skirted mass jutting out from the Downtown Brooklyn skyline like a sword from an impaled body. Maybe you even wondered to yourself or out loud—stunned by the sheer scale of the protrusion—whether people actually live in that thing. Well, it appears the answer is: kind of.
According to a new report from Curbed, the 93-story luxury residence at 9 Dekalb Avenue does, in fact, have a handful of occupants. But they are few and sometimes whole floors between. “It’s quite peaceful up here,” said Tamara Peterson—an executive assistant to someone of presumably unthinkable wealth—who lives with her Pomeranian in a 1-bedroom apartment in the building, where a roughly 500 square-foot studio goes for about $1.1 million. Peterson lives in one of the 19 apartments the building has managed to sell in the first couple years since opening. And she’s still waiting for the completion of most of the high-end perks promised for what is surely not an insignificant chunk of change. In time, there will be a building-wrapping pool, a massive 80,000 square-foot Life Time fitness center, and, on the 66th floor, what the building has claimed is “the world’s highest dog-run.”
But none of those amenities have materialized—nor has a date of completion—which could be keeping the building from breaking through what is currently a 13% occupancy rate. Then again, it might just be that there aren’t too many prospective buyers for multimillion-dollar condos with views of a Trader Joe’s and Long Island University’s Brooklyn campus. Other tenants do, however, seem to enjoy some of the less obvious comforts of living in a ghost town of a highrise. “There’s fewer people in the elevator, but I don’t know who’s complaining about that,” said Adam Chang, who bought a 1-bedroom with a solid view of the park for $1.3 million in 2024.
Despite the slow start, Maggie Marshall, a broker associated with the building, seems confident things will eventually turn around. “It’s not like you’re going to have a building sitting empty for the next 300 years.” Let’s hope not, Maggie. Let’s hope not.
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