THE CONDO BOOK PROJECT

Oosten Condominium

429 Kent Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11249

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Overview

A 216-residence condo filling a South Williamsburg block, from a Xinyuan subsidiary with Piet Boon Studio as design architect. It has 15 triplex townhouses and four penthouses with private hot tubs, a lifeguarded pool and a private street the condo must maintain.

  • Address: 429 Kent Avenue, South Williamsburg, Brooklyn
  • Plan: CD130264, accepted for filing in March 2014
  • Residences: 216 on floors 1 through 8 (there's no 4th floor), including townhouses, lofts, duplexes, four penthouses and a resident manager's unit
  • Other units: a Community Facility Unit of about 9,499 square feet on parts of the first and second floors, expected but not guaranteed to be an art gallery
  • Parking and storage: 81 parking spaces in the lower-cellar garage sold as licenses for about $5.8 million in total, five of them handicap spaces the condo buys. Storage rooms come with the homes.
  • First offering: 216 residences at about $336.9 million in total. Townhouses were offered at about $3.5 million to $3.8 million and PH1 at $8 million (sponsor offering prices, not sales).

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FigureThis building1Bridge Street2144 units · 1.6 miaccepted 2014Boerum3128 units · 1.7 miaccepted 2014
Average Offering PricePer Apartment$1.59MIn line$1.4M$1.97M

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Unit mix, closings, budgets, finishes and the team, against Bridge Street and Boerum, cited to the offering plans. No credit card required.

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How We Got This
  • Comps: the closest Brooklyn plans on size, $/SF and launch date, within 2 miles when possible.
  • Figures: each building's own offering plan, filed with the NY Attorney General. Nothing is estimated.
  • Checked: a price list publishes only when its math adds up, and building pages cite the plan pages.
  • Labels: In line is between the comps; Below/Above peers is past both by up to 15%; Lowest/Highest by more.

Budget

What It Costs to Run

The sponsor projected a first-year budget (December 2015 to November 2016) of about $2.88 million. The Community Facility Unit pays about $55,000, parking license fees bring in about $229,000, and the residences pay about $2.6 million. Here's how that works out in monthly common charges, per Schedule A and Schedule B:

  • About $726 a month for the resident manager's unit.
  • About $1,950 to $2,200 a month for the townhouses.
  • About $214 a month on top for each parking license.

Notable lines:

  • Service contracts: about $868,000, the largest line. It includes $228,700 for parking management, $200,000 for amenity management, $120,000 for landscaping and private-road upkeep, $72,000 for elevator maintenance, $40,000 for the concierge service and $22,500 for monitoring the sub-slab vapor system.
  • Staff: about $806,000.
  • Common-area electricity: about $326,000.
  • Reserve for replacements: about $262,000.
  • Insurance: $203,000.
  • Management fee: $100,000 to FirstService Residential.
  • Resident manager's unit: about $99,000, which only residential owners pay.

Good to know: unlike many new condos, the plan builds a reserve fund into the budget, and the board must keep it while the sponsor owns a unit. You'll pay two months of common charges into working capital at closing, and so will later buyers on resales. Real estate taxes were expected to start at a reduced 421-a level, phasing out over 15 years. Without it, the plan estimates about $4.3 million in year one for the residences and about $5.1 million once the building is fully assessed. For more, see 421-a in NYC condos, why operating costs differ and our common charge benchmarks.

From our research: The Sponsor's Condo-Creation Fee in NYC · NYC Condo Insurance Costs Are Rising · Condo Supplies Cost per Unit, by Size

The Building

Finishes

The plan says the appliance package is the same in every home (compare with our NYC condo finishes guide).

Kitchen

  • A Miele refrigerator and Miele dishwasher, with a Bosch gas cooktop, wall oven, hood and microwave.
  • A Blanco stainless sink, a KWC faucet and an InSinkErator disposal.
  • Hardwood cabinet doors with a painted veneer finish and polished stone countertops.

See how these names compare in our kitchen appliance brands guide.

Baths

  • Toto toilets, Toto sinks and Toto faucets in every home.
  • Zuma bathtubs.
  • The four penthouses get electric radiant heat in the bathroom floors.

See how these names rank in our bathroom brands guide.

Floors, Ceilings and Windows

  • Half-inch oak floors from Martijn de Wit Vloeren, in its Urbanwood line.
  • Ceilings of about 9 feet 4 inches in living rooms and bedrooms, 8 feet 4 inches in kitchens and halls, and 8 feet in baths. Double-height rooms in the duplexes reach about 18 feet 2 inches, and townhouse ceilings run from about 9 feet 4 inches to 14 feet 4 inches.
  • Eight-inch concrete slabs between floors, rated STC 50, and brick cavity walls outside.

Laundry, Heating and Cooling

  • Homes have hookups for an electric washer and a ventless electric dryer, but you buy and install the machines yourself. There's no common laundry room.
  • Floor-mounted fan coils on an LG variable refrigerant flow (VRF) system heat and cool each home, with a thermostat for each unit. There are no central boilers.
  • Each home has its own electric water heater in a utility closet, from 50 gallons in one-bedrooms to 120 gallons in townhouses.
  • Electricity and water are submetered and billed to each owner. Cooking gas isn't, so it's paid through common charges.

Amenities, Staffing & Transportation

The shared amenities are on the upper cellar, the ground floor and the roof (compare with amenities by building size).

Upper Cellar

  • A swimming pool about 55 feet long and 21 feet 8 inches wide, up to 5 feet deep, attended by a lifeguard.
  • A fitness center with spinning bikes, ellipticals, treadmills, strength machines and dumbbells, plus an aerobics room.
  • A massage room, steam room, sauna, a coffee and juice bar, and separate men's and women's shower rooms.

Ground Floor and Roof

  • A children's playroom for ages 1 to 7 next to the Kent Avenue lobby. It's unattended.
  • A landscaped courtyard with seating and a small playground, reachable from both lobbies.
  • A shared roof deck on the west side of the 8th-floor roof with three gas barbecue grills, sunbathing areas, seating and a decorative fountain about 18 inches deep.

Good to know: the plan warns that some services and amenities, including a full staff, may not be ready until about 12 months after the first closing. There's no bike room, so bikes go in your storage room or your home.

Staffing and Services

The year-one budget plans a small, non-union staff:

  • A live-in resident manager in unit 217, who gets free rent, utilities and parking.
  • Doormen and concierges, about 4.2 full-time positions, so the South 8th Street lobby is staffed 24/7.
  • One handyman and five porters.

Wages and benefits come to about $806,000, about 28% of the budget. Owners also get free access to Abigail Michaels Concierge for errands and requests, weekdays 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturdays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Five passenger elevators serve the residential floors, plus two more that open into semi-private vestibules for the penthouses and lofts. Our doorman cost guide puts these numbers in context.

Transportation

  • Subway: 10 min walk to Marcy Av J M Z; Hewes St J M, 15 min

Fine Print

What's Specific to It

  • Townhouses inside a condo: 15 triplex townhouses on the ground floor each have their own street door, a door to a private garden off the courtyard, and a lower level with a garage door into the parking garage. Each has a private Jacuzzi hot tub on its first-floor terrace.
  • Penthouses with hot tubs and garages: the four penthouses get hot tubs on their 8th-floor terraces and storage rooms large enough to be zoned as a parking space.
  • A storage room for every apartment: 201 storage rooms come with the homes, one per residence except the townhouses, which have their own lower levels.
  • A private street: the sponsor builds South 9th Street between Wythe and Kent Avenues as a private road. The condo has to maintain it and clear its snow, yet it stays open to the public.
  • Environmental controls: the site carries city hazardous-materials and noise designations. The building has a vapor barrier and a sub-slab depressurization system, and the board pays for ongoing monitoring.
  • A non-union staff: the budget says all staff will be full-time and non-union, paid prevailing wages.

Oosten takes up a full block in South Williamsburg, with its main lobby on South 8th Street and a keycard lobby on Kent Avenue. Its offering plan tells you what's in the homes, what you share with the neighbors and what the building should cost to run.

Fine Print Worth Knowing

  • Sponsor control: the sponsor controls the board until 95% of the homes offered have closed or a permanent certificate of occupancy is issued, whichever is later. The plan says it may never give up control, and it keeps the right to rent rather than sell.
  • The resident manager's note: the condo buys unit 217 ($944,125) and the five handicap parking spaces ($325,000) with a $1,269,125 sponsor note at 5%, interest-only for three years. The full balance comes due at the end, and owners could be assessed to repay it.
  • Environmental designations: chemicals from an off-site source were found in groundwater and soil vapor. The board pays for vapor-system monitoring and yearly inspections that the city's environmental office requires.
  • Parking isn't guaranteed: the sponsor can withdraw the parking offering until 75% of licenses are sold. Licenses aren't tied to a specific space, and the budget assumes attendants and stackers that need a zoning change.
  • Hot tubs and window shades: townhouse and penthouse owners maintain their hot tubs at their own cost. Every owner who wants shades must use one specific Mechoshade roller shade in Alabaster.
  • Development rights: the sponsor keeps about 29,438 square feet of unused development rights. If they're moved to a neighboring site, your light, air and views could be affected.
  • Deposit and delays: the deposit is 15% of the price, and closing late costs 0.03% of the price for each day.

Team

  • Sponsor: 421 Kent Development, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Xinyuan Real Estate Co.; principal Yong Zhang
  • Design architect: Piet Boon Studio
  • Architect of record and mechanical engineer: WASA/Studio A
  • Selling agent: Halstead Property Development Marketing
  • Managing agent and budget expert: FirstService Residential
  • Sponsor's counsel: Starr Associates
  • Tax counsel: Olshan Frome Wolosky (income tax) and Tuchman, Korngold, Weiss and Gelles (421-a)

The plan doesn't name a separate interior designer.

Nearby

FAQ

Does Oosten have a pool?

Yes. The upper cellar has a pool about 55 feet long and nearly 22 feet wide, up to 5 feet deep and attended by a lifeguard, next to a fitness center, steam room, sauna, massage room and juice bar.

Do apartments at Oosten have washers and dryers?

Each home has hookups for an electric washer and a ventless electric dryer, but owners buy and install the machines themselves, and the building has no common laundry room.

Is the staff at Oosten union?

No. The first-year budget says the staff, a live-in resident manager, a handyman, five porters and about 4.2 doormen and concierges, will be full-time and non-union, at a cost of about $806,000 a year with benefits.

Where this comes from: the building's offering plan (CD130264) as filed with the New York Attorney General, including its Special Risks, Description of Property and Improvements, the architect's Description of Property and Building Condition, Schedule A, Schedule B, Community Facility Unit and Identity of Parties sections. Prices are the sponsor's offering prices, not sales, and budget figures are the sponsor's first-year projections. Later amendments may change them. Updated October 2026.