The Rialto, 150 North 5th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 150 North 5th Street by Carter Horsley

This four-story residential condominium building at 150 North 5th Street in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn is known as The Rialto and was completed in 2008 and has 31 apartments including some duplex units.

It was developed by Ted Hovivian, who had owned the Rialto Furniture store formerly on the site.

It was designed by Gene Kaufman and its sleek, modern façade is highlighted by slightly protruding but thin window frames and a terrace with a rounded and windowed bay beneath a curved smaller terrace.

Interiors were designed by Andres Escobar and some units have fireplaces.

The mid-block building, which is also known as 149-153 North 4th Street, is one block away from the shops and restaurants of Bedford Avenue and is close to L subway line station.

The building has a roof deck, a courtyard, and a video intercom system, but no garage, no fitness center and no doorman.

Some ceilings are as high as about 20 feet and each apartment has washer-dryer hookups, and 4-inch wide rift and quartered white oak floors, some walk-in closets

Kitchens have Miele appliances, custom quartered grain teak cabinets, blizzard white quartz Caesar stone countertops, Insinkerator waste disposals, and acid etched mirror backsplash and island surround.

Bathrooms have limestone floors, wenge finish vanities, white gioia counter and seat in showers, large soaking tubs and Kler fixtures.

A major, long article on the housing boom in Williamsburg by David Amsden ran in the July 12, 2009 edition of New York magazine, entitled "The Billyburg Bust."

"My first stop was a building called the Rialto, on North 5th Street, a choice block near the Bedford Avenue subway station. 'Conceived to create special homes for design-conscious urbanites,' according to its sales brochure, the building in many ways epitomizes the style favored by developers in the area: slick, modernist, with 'soaring' ceilings and 'European-style' kitchens featuring teak cabinetry and CaesarStone counters. The Rialto has been on the market since May of last year, but only seventeen of its 31 units have sold. Hoping to entice new buyers, the developers have begun to offer incentives that would have been unthinkable to those who purchased fourteen months ago. In April, for instance, anyone who bought an apartment was treated to an all-expense-paid trip to Venice-to walk the actual Rialto Bridge! Alas, there were no takers."

"It says something about the current state of the market." the article continued, "that Ted and Marianne Hovivian, the husband-and-wife team behind the project, are in a far better position than many in the neighborhood. With just over half the building in contract, the Hovivians have made it past one major hurdle - the fact that most banks will not release closing funds until at least 50 percent of a building s units are in contract. (Most sales were made before Fannie Mae upped its threshold to 70 percent.) And because they've owned the land since 1983 - it was the site of their furniture-manufacturing company, Rialto Furniture - they can afford to be patient. 'Thank God for that,' Marianne told me when I called her after visiting the property. 'If we'd paid the high prices that some people around here paid, we'd be in a much worse position.'"

"The idea to convert the property had been on her and her husband's minds since the late nineties, when they got an unexpected call from someone with Starwood Hotels. 'That sparked our awareness that the neighborhood was really beginning to change,' Marianne said. Though she still felt that she and her husband made the right decision, she conceded that 'we're not as happy as we'd like to be.' The Hovivians had figured the building would sell out quickly, in as little as six months, allowing them to retire in style. 'There were many grand plans of what might be when we first got started,' Marianne told me, laughing ruefully. 'But now, obviously, those are all on hold.'"