970 Kent Avenue (The Kent)
970 Kent Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11205
BBL 3019257501 · BIN 3388495
- Year built
- 1930
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 103
- Floors
- 9
- Landmark
- No
Every recorded sale at this building, 2005–2026
Price-per-square-foot over time, the line- and floor-premium curves, and every recorded sale.
- Median $/sf
- $1,064
- Listing discount
- 0.0%
- Recorded sales
- 171
- On record
- 2005–2026
This is a large loft building in a part of Brooklyn that does not have many of them, and that is most of the argument. The Kent occupies roughly 108,700 square feet of residential area across nine stories on a 35,600-square-foot lot — about 1,055 square feet per apartment, which is a different product from the compact one- and two-bedroom stock that dominates the Bedford-Stuyvesant and Clinton Hill condominium market. Buyers come here for square footage, ceiling height and light, and they pay less per foot for it than they would for the equivalent in Williamsburg or DUMBO.
The building's history is more interesting than its reputation suggests, and it has been mis-told. Press coverage has for years described 970 Kent as the former "Kaiser Underwear Factory." The company was Julius Kayser & Co. — a silk-glove maker founded in 1879 that grew, on the strength of a patented reinforced fingertip, into one of the largest apparel and accessories firms in the country. Its Brooklyn flagship began on Taaffe Place, a block west, and expanded across the block to Kent Avenue as the business scaled; by 1913 it employed roughly 2,500 people in Brooklyn alone. The complex outlasted most of its neighbors and was still operating into the 1950s. Nearly all of it survives, and nearly all of it is now housing.
The conversion happened in 2004, early in the cycle that turned this industrial corridor residential and well before the corridor had a residential market to speak of. Two setback penthouse floors with slanted roofs were added above the original mass. What the conversion preserved is what buyers now buy: twelve-foot ceilings, wide multi-pane windows on a deep floor plate, and open plans that take custom configuration well.
The structural facts a buyer should hold onto are less romantic. First, the tax position: there is no 421-a and no J-51 here, so the tax line is the tax line, with no phase-out ahead of it and no reset behind it. That is a real advantage over neighboring buildings whose benefits are expiring now, and it should be modeled rather than assumed. Second, the leasing posture: owners may lease immediately, with no holding period — which makes this one of the more investor-usable condominiums in the submarket, and also means a meaningful share of the building may be tenant-occupied at any given time. Third, nothing here is landmarked and the lot is under-built against its R7A district, so the block's future form is not fixed.
Architecture and unit composition
The lot is irregular, 292 feet wide on Kent Avenue and roughly 111 feet deep, and the building fills it. Nine stories rise to 126 feet; the top two levels are the added penthouse duplexes, set back with pitched roofs that read as a distinct later intervention from the street.
Apartments run largely to one- and two-bedroom configurations, with most in the 1,000-to-1,100-square-foot range and penthouse units above that. The consistent features are the ones the factory gave the building: ceiling heights around twelve feet, large multi-pane windows, deep open floor plates and wide-plank flooring in the converted units. A number of apartments carry private outdoor space, and upper-floor units on the west and north elevations take open city and Manhattan views across the low-rise blocks toward the Navy Yard.
Because the plans are open and the building has been through two decades of individual renovations, condition and configuration vary widely from unit to unit. Exposure, floor level, and whether a given apartment has private outdoor space are the three variables that separate one home here from another; there is no reliable line-to-line equivalence.
Building operations
The Kent runs as a full-service condominium with a doorman, a live-in superintendent and professional management — a heavier service package than most buildings at this price point in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and one that shows up in the common charges. The amenity set is modest but genuinely used: fitness center, children's playroom, central laundry, storage available for rent, and a landscaped interior courtyard with a walking and running track, which is the building's one unusual feature.
At 103 units the building has enough of a denominator to spread capital work, but it is a 1930-vintage industrial structure carrying a 2004 conversion, which is now more than twenty years old. That is precisely the window in which conversion-era systems — elevators, roofing, the building's mechanical plant, and the facade under its Local Law 11 cycle — come due. Ask for the reserve balance, the last three years of financial statements, the current capital plan and any assessment history, and ask specifically what conversion-era systems have been replaced and which have not.
The building exceeds 25,000 square feet, which places it inside the city's energy benchmarking and building-emissions regimes. Ask the managing agent to state the building's Local Law 97 position in writing.
Policy framework
Management-sourced records current to August 2026 describe a permissive stack, which is the building's competitive edge:
Pets: Allowed.
In-unit washer/dryer: Allowed.
Financing: Up to 90 percent of purchase price.
Subletting: Permitted, with owners able to lease immediately after closing. There is no waiting period, which is rare and is the reason this building draws investor capital.
Guarantors, gifted funds, and parents purchasing for an employed or student child: All permitted.
Storage: Available for rent rather than deeded.
Flip tax: Not documented in the records available to us.
Fees: Management-sourced records list a buyer application processing fee of $750, a credit check fee of $150 per applicant, a move-in/move-out fee of $600, and a closing document preparation fee of $350. A landlord lease fee of $250 is recorded on a monthly basis — a per-month charge and a per-lease charge are very different numbers for an investor, and the basis should be confirmed with the managing agent before underwriting a rental.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $22,951/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $19
Source: NYC LL84 benchmarking and PLUTO · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
See full Local Law 97 analysis — emissions history, scenarios, methodology →Facade safety — Local Law 11
The latest available filing classified the facade as SWARMP — Safe With A Repair and Maintenance Program: the engineer identified conditions requiring monitoring or repair before the next inspection cycle. The scope, timeline, and how the building funds the work are building-specific — we review the filings and board materials for you.
How to read this, and where it comes from
QEWI = Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector — the licensed engineer the city requires to sign the report (the independent expert, not the managing agent).
Penalties shown are amounts DOB assessed against filings on record across 2005–10 to 2020–25. The FISP dataset does not record whether they were paid, contested or remain open, so treat the figure as history rather than a current balance and confirm the building’s standing with the managing agent.
Source: NYC DOB facade filings (FISP) · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
Recent sales
The Kent trades as a dollars-per-square-foot loft product and should be benchmarked against converted industrial buildings rather than against the new-construction condominium stock on the surrounding avenues. Its apartments are larger than the neighborhood norm and its finish level is uneven, so the honest comparison set is other loft conversions in the Bedford-Stuyvesant, Clinton Hill and Bushwick corridor — and, at a premium, the Williamsburg warehouse conversions that established the format.
Two things distort naive comparisons. The first is renovation condition: twenty-plus years of owner alterations mean two apartments of identical size can be genuinely different products, and unrenovated inventory here should be priced as a project. The second is the tax line — the absence of any abatement means carrying costs per square foot sit above an abated competitor at the same asking price, and the comparison that matters is a full carrying-cost comparison rather than a price comparison. Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
Recent closings at this building, curated by The Roebling Team research desk. Prices are the transfer amounts recorded with the NYC Department of Finance; apartment-level detail is checked against the building’s own file in The Roebling Research Library before publishing.
| Date | Unit | Apartment | Price | PPSF | vs. Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 30, 2026 | 110 | 1 BR · 1,008 sf | $985,000 | $977/sf | off-mkt |
| Jun 24, 2026 | 109 | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,000 sf | $1,180,000 | $1,180/sf | +2.6% |
| Apr 1, 2026 | 512 | 2 BA · 1,034 sf | $1,100,000 | $1,064/sf | +0.0% |
| Jul 28, 2025 | 104 | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,071 sf | $965,000 | $901/sf | -3.4% |
| Dec 16, 2024 | 208 | 1 BR · 2 BA · 1,000 sf | $999,999 | $1,000/sf | +1.5% |
| Nov 12, 2024 | 705 | 1 BR · 2 BA · 1,062 sf | $995,000 | $937/sf | -5.2% |
| Dec 8, 2023 | 313 | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,000 sf | $1,125,000 | $1,125/sf | +0.0% |
| Jul 29, 2022 | G06 | 1 BR · 2 BA · 1,013 sf | $840,000 | $829/sf | -6.6% |
Market read. Most recent trades (2026) cleared a median $1,064/sf across 3 sales. Median listing discount 0.0% from the last ask.
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
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 3-01925-7501) 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; square footage from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.
What to know if you’re buying
Get the offering plan and Schedule A, because we do not have them. The public record disagrees with itself on unit count — 103 in Finance records, 104 in Department of Buildings filings — and only the plan settles it. Ask for the plan and all amendments, the current house rules, the last three years of financial statements, the reserve balance and capital plan, and any transfer fee.
Underwrite the taxes as permanent. There is no benefit burning off here. That is a virtue for a long-hold buyer and a drag on entry price against an abated neighbor; run the True Monthly Carrying Cost on both.
Ask what has been replaced since 2004. A twenty-plus-year-old conversion in a 1930 building is at the point where elevators, roof, mechanicals and the facade cycle all become live questions at once.
Walk the transit and the block. The G at Classon Avenue is close, but this is an industrial-edge corridor with active Navy Yard traffic, and the character of the street varies block to block.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 970 Kent Avenue, also evaluate:
- Austin Nichols House (184 Kent Avenue) — the 1915 Williamsburg warehouse converted to condominium in 2016; the format's benchmark, at a materially higher price
- Clinton Mews (372 DeKalb Avenue) — heavy-timber industrial building converted to cooperative ownership in 1987–88, four blocks south; the tenure-and-vintage contrast
- 689 Myrtle Avenue (the Chocolate Factory) — the other well-known Bed-Stuy loft conversion; the closest same-neighborhood comparison
- 318 Knickerbocker Avenue (The Knick) — the 49-unit Bushwick conversion of three 1890s buildings; the same logic at boutique scale, with a buyer-paid flip tax
- 315 Gates Avenue — the Karl Fischer–designed Bedford-Stuyvesant condominium with garage and roof terrace; the new-construction alternative at smaller unit sizes
- 227 Taaffe Place — the surviving Kayser mill building one block west, converted to rental apartments; the same complex, a different tenure
- 75 Greene Avenue — a 1930 institutional building adaptively reused as a 22-unit Fort Greene condominium; adaptive-reuse peer at boutique scale
- The Sanctuary (264 Cumberland Street) — a former chapel and clergy residence converted to 13 Fort Greene condominiums; the small-scale conversion alternative
- 195 Willoughby Avenue (Willoughby Walk) — the large postwar Clinton Hill cooperative opposite Pratt; the co-op alternative at similar price points
- 185 Clinton Avenue (Clinton Hill Co-ops) — the wartime Clinton Hill cooperative campus; larger apartments, cooperative approval, lower carrying cost
- 360 Clinton Avenue — 1928 elevator apartment house on the mansion row, converted to cooperative ownership in 1983–84
How to read the facts on this page. Items attributed to an offering plan describe the building as it was offered at that filing — unit mix, square footage, the amenity program as planned. They are not a statement about how the building operates today. Tax and compliance figures are sourced separately to current City records and carry their own dates. House rules, staffing and fee policy can change by board resolution without any public filing: treat every policy line here as a starting point for diligence and confirm it with the managing agent.
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