700 Pacific Street (Newswalk)
700 Pacific Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217
Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
BBL 3011287501 · BIN 3027610
- Year built
- 1927
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 168
- Floors
- 9
- Landmark
- No
Newswalk is the largest industrial loft conversion in Prospect Heights and, for two decades, the neighborhood's default answer to the question of where in brownstone Brooklyn a buyer can find a genuine factory floor plate. The building went up in the late 1920s as the Brooklyn printing plant of the New York Daily News — a reinforced-concrete daylight structure covering a full through-block parcel from Pacific Street to Dean Street, 315 feet wide and 220 feet deep, with the column spacing, slab heights and window walls that a rotary press hall required. When the presses left, that structure was what remained: roughly 269,000 square feet across nine floors, almost none of it interrupted by the party walls and light shafts that define the rest of the neighborhood's housing stock. Shaya Boymelgreen converted it to condominium ownership in 2002 and 2003 and named it for what it had been.
The apartments that came out of that conversion are the reason the building still trades on its own terms. Ceiling heights of roughly twelve feet, deep floor plates, industrial sash, and layouts that run from open studios through duplexes and penthouse lofts with private outdoor space — this is a different product from the six-story elevator apartment houses on Eastern Parkway or the brownstone floor-throughs on Park Place, and it prices differently. A buyer cross-shopping Newswalk against a prewar co-op three blocks south is comparing square footage and volume against rooms and detail, and against very different monthly carrying structures.
The second thing to know about Newswalk is that its construction history is a matter of public record, and an unusually well-documented one. Owners moved into apartments with serious defects. The condominium's board sued the sponsor in 2007 seeking $10 million; reporting in the co-op and condominium trade press catalogued leaks at roof bulkheads, insulation that caught fire, and failed waterproofing that let reinforcing steel rust and concrete crack. Unit owners spent millions of their own money making the building sound. The board raised common charges roughly 40 percent, borrowed $5 million on a five-year term in 2011 to fund façade and structural work, and financed a lobby and entryway renovation by asking residents to prepay a year of common charges in exchange for a free month. The litigation ran roughly a decade and resolved in a settlement whose components included escrowed funds, a payment from the developer, a payment from an engineering firm, and the conveyance of the ground-floor retail unit and the laundry room to the condominium itself. The New York Attorney General separately barred Boymelgreen from selling securities in the state for two years, through August 2, 2018.
That history is a reason to read the building carefully rather than a reason to walk away from it. A condominium that has already replaced its roof, rebuilt its envelope, litigated its sponsor to a settlement and taken income-producing commercial space onto its own balance sheet sits in a materially different position from one that has deferred all of it. The work is behind Newswalk rather than ahead of it, and the paper trail that documents the work is the best diligence file most Brooklyn condominium buyers will ever be handed.
Finally, geography. Newswalk sits at the northwest edge of Prospect Heights, on the block immediately adjacent to the Atlantic Yards platform that is now marketed as Pacific Park. It predates that project by several years, and it is not part of it — a distinction worth making clearly, because the Pacific Park corridor is overwhelmingly rental housing held inside condominium wrappers rather than for-sale inventory. Newswalk is a true for-sale condominium with a deep record of individual unit transfers recorded in ACRIS going back to the first closings in August 2002. The practical consequences of the adjacency are construction noise and staging on some of the surrounding blocks, and a build-out timeline that has repeatedly moved.
Architecture and unit composition
Newswalk reads from the street as what it is: a broad, flat-fronted concrete industrial block with regular bays of large windows, rising nine stories with no setback vocabulary and no ornamental program. The through-block condition gives the building two street addresses and two frontages — 700 Pacific Street on the north, 535 Dean Street on the south — and gives apartments on opposite sides of the plate genuinely different light, noise and outlook. That difference matters more here than in a conventional apartment house, because there is no consistent "line" logic to fall back on.
The unit stock is heterogeneous by design. Conversion of a plant of this footprint produced apartments of very different depths, ceiling conditions and window counts, along with duplexes, penthouse units with terraces, and units with mezzanines. Several apartments have been substantially reconfigured by owners since 2002. The practical consequence for pricing is that per-square-foot comparison inside the building requires care: two apartments of identical stated square footage can differ sharply in usable volume, window wall, and outdoor space, and the recorded floor plans in the declaration are not always what a buyer will walk through.
Storage, parking and the ground-floor commercial space are separate matters from the residential inventory; the condominium's ownership of the retail unit and the laundry room, acquired through the sponsor settlement, produces commercial income at the building level. Ask for the current lease terms and the share of the operating budget that income covers.
Building operations
The operating record is the reason to buy here and the reason to read carefully before you do. Any Newswalk transaction should begin with the capital file: the scope and dates of the façade and structural remediation, the status and payoff of the borrowing that funded it, the current reserve position, the assessment history, and the current FISP/LL11 cycle on a concrete building of this age and exposure. The building has been through a full remediation cycle; the question for a 2026 buyer is what remains and what the balance sheet looks like on the other side.
Common charges at Newswalk have moved substantially in both directions over the building's life — up roughly 40 percent to fund the repair program, and back down by roughly 20 percent after the settlement funds arrived. Neither number describes 2026. Pull the current budget, the current common charge per square foot on the specific unit, and the current tax bill, and run them together rather than separately.
Confirm the managing agent, the staffing roster and the reserve position with management during diligence. The Roebling Research Library maintains the building's financial and capital records and shares them with clients at that stage.
Recent sales
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Recent closings at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 17, 2026 | 617 | $1,250,000 |
| Jan 30, 2026 | 804 | $2,300,000 |
| Dec 26, 2024 | 104 | $2,355,654 |
| Dec 22, 2023 | 130 | $995,000 |
| Nov 30, 2023 | 106 | $2,440,000 |
| Nov 27, 2023 | 210 | $1,825,000 |
Full closing history with price-per-square-foot over time, the complete retrade record, and every line that has traded.
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-01128-7501) and verified listing data. Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified by The Roebling Team research desk. Not all transactions cross-verify with ACRIS records — sponsor and LLC purchases sometimes record at stipulated values rather than market price.
What to know if you’re buying
Read the capital file first, not last. The defect litigation, the remediation scope, the borrowing that funded it and the settlement that partly reimbursed it are all documented. This is the rare Brooklyn condominium where you can reconstruct twenty years of building condition from paper. Do it before you write an offer, not after inspection.
Buy the apartment, not the square footage. Conversion units of this vintage vary enormously in volume, light and usable plan at identical stated area. Walk the specific floor plate and the specific exposure.
Confirm the alteration record on any renovated unit. Owner reconfiguration has been extensive. Ask for approvals, permits and sign-offs, and have your attorney confirm them against the Department of Buildings record.
Understand the Pacific Park adjacency. Newswalk predates the Atlantic Yards project and stands outside its footprint. What the adjacency brings is construction staging on nearby blocks and a build-out timeline that has repeatedly moved. Newswalk itself is a genuine for-sale condominium with two decades of individually recorded unit deeds behind it.
No historic district, no Landmarks review. Windows, façade work and rooftop additions here do not pass through the LPC — and neither does anything a neighbor builds.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the volume. Twelve-foot ceilings, deep plates and industrial sash are the product. Photograph proportion and light, and present the plan rather than the finish schedule.
Put the capital history in the marketing package, in your own words. A buyer's attorney will find it in week two regardless. Sellers who disclose the remediation, the settlement and the current reserve position up front convert it from a renegotiation lever into a credential.
Price against Brooklyn loft comparables. The Prospect Heights prewar co-op market is not your comparable set, and an appraiser will not treat it as one. The honest peers are the borough's converted industrial buildings.
Assemble the condominium documents early. By-laws, house rules, alteration agreement, current budget, reserve position, and the retail and laundry lease terms. Speed of documentation is the difference between a 45-day close and a 90-day one.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering Newswalk, also evaluate:
- 550 Vanderbilt Avenue — the only condominium in the Pacific Park development next door; the direct new-construction alternative on the same blocks
- 135 Eastern Parkway (Turner Towers) — the neighborhood's largest prewar cooperative; the tenure-and-format comparison for buyers weighing rooms against square feet
- 1 Grand Army Plaza (Richard Meier on Prospect Park) — the Prospect Heights full-service condominium alternative at the Plaza
- 168 Plymouth Street — DUMBO industrial conversion; the closest peer in format and vintage of reuse
- 30 Main Street (The Sweeney Building) — DUMBO daylight-factory conversion with comparable plate depth
- 37 Bridge Street (Kirkman Lofts) — former soap factory conversion; smaller, similar idiom
- 60 Broadway (The Gretsch) — Williamsburg's flagship loft conversion; the borough-wide benchmark
- 184 Kent Avenue (Austin Nichols House) — the largest Williamsburg warehouse conversion; scale peer
- 11 Hoyt Street — full-amenity Downtown Brooklyn condominium; the amenity-tier contrast a few minutes northwest
Considering a move at Newswalk?
Request a private building brief with the relevant comparable sales, current and off-market availability, and an apartment-specific view of value.
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at Newswalk would likely sell for today, what it costs to sell, and what you’d walk away with — reviewed personally against condition, exposures, renovation quality, and the competition actually on the market.