Is there trouble brewing for the building on Fourth Avenue intended to rise across the street from the Novo Park Slope? This is what the building, a glass Hot Karl Fischer, is supposed to look like, but a tipster writes of the threat of Hot Karl Interruptus. The 107-unit building would be developed by Isaac Katan, whose name causes some in the South Slope and Greenwood Heights to start foaming at the mouth. There are apparently two alleged issues: 1) an inability to get financing for the projects and 2) the possible smell of something that might be gasoline wafting from the lake at the bottom of the construction pit. The project has been underway for nearly two years.
Here's the full email from our tipster:
As you know Isaac Katan has had a hand in many of the GSlope/4th Avenue twelve story apartment buildings that have gone up and continue to go up and that have been generally criticized as fugly. Could be game over. He was to put up yet another building on 4th Avenue and 5th Street (site of a former BP gas station) and across from the Novo. The site was demo'd, remediated, and the piles were driven. Lately, nothing's been happening. and I have it on good authority that he has been unable, as of now, to obtain financing. Meanwhile, in typical 4th Avenue fashion, the site is turning into a lake. I also understand that the 'lake' reeks of gasoline and that both city and state environmental authorities were summoned by concerned citizens to find out why.
Updates as they become available.
· Slope Getting a Big Hot Karl: Novo's Friend Revealed [Curbed]
· Gas Pains: Fourth Ave. Station Out, 12 Stories In [Curbed]
