An old warehouse on the corner of Nassau Avenue and North 14th Street is slated to become a climbing gym, according to real estate site The Real Deal. Vital Climbing Gym, a chain based in California, has signed a 15-year lease on the 31,000 square foot space and plans to build it out and extend the square footage with a working rooftop. Apparently they are planning a 24-hour full-service gym, and expect it to be open by next summer. This will be the gym’s first location on the East coast.
The building was built at the turn of the 20th century, and originally housed a metal manufacturing company.
Our neighborhood’s industrial appearance is getting further and further eroded. The old warehouses are now getting fewer and farther between.
Well Russell, you get the good and bad with this.
I am a life long senior Greenpointer and have mixed feelings.
You are correct that the old factory era is gone, the average person can’t afford the place anymore, and the new young people are not my demo. Forget about owning a car here anymore. The place is like Manhattan.
However, most of the factories were abandoned and eye sores, the new people brought parks and other things that vitalize an area. Although Greenpoint/North Williamsburg were never high crime areas, as little as 20 yrs ago, hookers and packs of wild dogs would stop your car on Kent Ave. every few blocks.
As long as they preserve a few old factories that are historic, and protect seniors still living here with rent regulations and assign affordable housing to new towers, it’s called progress.