The Coignet building at the intersection of Third and 3rd in Gowanus has beguiled passersby for more than a century. It’s now on the market with a restored exterior and more a reasonable price than six years ago.
Photo: Corcoran
The Coignet building, an elegant mansion rendered in stone concrete in the midst of a Gowanus industrial zone, has always had an uncanny appeal: Built in 1873 as an advertisement for the stone concrete manufacturer behind it, the building served only briefly as a showpiece for the Coignet Stone Company, which filed for bankruptcy that year and went under entirely in 1882. No one has ever quite figured out what to do with it since. It’s been used as the offices for a handful of industrial and construction companies, abandoned, auctioned off at a tax lien sale in the early 1990s, and since the early 2000s, sitting vacant — a beautiful, dilapidated loner on the corner of 3rd Street and Third Avenue. But after an exterior renovation courtesy of Whole Foods, whose store practically engulfs it, the Coignet building might finally be put to use again. It’s on the market, as first reported by the New York Post, asking $2.995 million.
The interior has been stripped down and cleaned out, revealing beautiful features (and the need for extensive work).
Photo: Corcoran
It’s not the first time that the oddly compelling property has been listed for sale, but it’s the first time it seems likely to actually sell. In 2013, the building went on the market for $3 million, after the owner, Richard Kowalski, who ran a plumbing company out of the building until about a decade before, sold the rest of the vast lot to Whole Foods, with the stipulation that it restores the building’s exterior, which was covered in brick. He tried again in 2019, asking $5 million, after the completion of a $1 million exterior renovation done by Whole Foods, and again didn’t find any takers. But Erica Nieves, the Corcoran agent who had the previous listing and this one now, says that there were offers in the high $2 millions and low $3 millions then. Now, the asking price is a lot more reasonable, and the rest of the neighborhood is undergoing a massive transformation from an industrial to a residential district, so the odds of finding a buyer are good.
The building has a spiral staircase, high windows, and arched doorways. But at 2,300 square feet, it may be too small for a lot of potential uses.
Photo: Corcoran
Presumably, someone can figure out a way to put a smaller concrete mansion to good use? The house is lovely, but not particularly large — 2,360 square feet. It’s also landmarked, surrounded by Whole Foods, and needs a full interior renovation — new plumbing, electrical, walls, floors. But the structure is sound, the windows are new, and the interiors have been cleared out and cleaned up, so that you can appreciate what it does have: a spiral staircase, arched doorways, 13-foot-high ceilings, big windows, and a safe that dates back to the 1800s. (Nieves admits that the basement still has horror-movie vibes, although it was most recently used as an employee locker room and break area — nothing spooky.) The zoning has also been changed from mixed use to commercial, so no one’s moving their family in, but it could be an intimate wedding venue, a gallery, a restaurant, a bookstore, a social club, or, as originally intended, a showroom of some kind. Nieves says that in the short time it’s been listed she’s heard from a number of interested parties. But she’s hoping that before it sells, they can host some kind of public event. “So the community can finally see what it looks like inside.”
Coignet was built in 1873 as an advertisement for a concrete block company that didn’t last the decade.
Photo: Corcoran/Vanessa Velez DeGarcia