Checking Out Vista: New Luxury Condos on Beverley Road

We stopped by the new 7-story "luxury" condo building on East 16th and Beverley Road this weekend to check out the digs and well, we weren't blown away. The building's developers are calling it "Vista," which, according to their fancy promo packet, stands for "Vantage, Victorian, Vibrant, and Value." Shouldn't it be more like an acrostic poem, with an adjective for each letter of Vista? How about "Vantage, Ingenuity, Style, Trendy, and Attitude" or some b.s. like that?

There were three apartments open for viewing, the largest of the three was decorated. Some of the touches, like the zebrawood vanities in the bathroom, seemed kind of cheap looking. The appliances were Bosch and Jenn-Air, and they seemed to go well with the look of the place. The living space itself wasn't great. We loved the huge picture windows, but for many of the apartments the only views afforded by them are of the ugly brick building across the street, which actually seemed closer looking out the window than it does when you're outside. Only one of the apartments had a good sized living room. The other ones seemed cramped, as did many of the bedrooms. In their packet, Vista boasts "clean lines," although in one of the three apartments that were on display, we saw a noticeable dip in the floor. The gap between the floor and the floorboard was filled in with a cheap-looking strip of caulk, not a reassuring sign for the quality of the construction.

The roof deck has pretty cool views of the rooftops and lawns of Beverley Square West. You can also see the Empire State Building, Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, and a clump of downtown buildings like 40 Wall Street and the AIG building. Unfortunately, it looks like the city views are only possible from the roof deck, so even the 7th floor penthouses that are going for $575k and $675k won't have too much of a "Vista."

The promo packet was worth the trip alone -- 12 glossy pieces of heavy card paper stuffed into a shiny reflective folder with lots of great shots of the beautiful homes in the neighborhood (all of which are on the other side of the tracks). According to the packet, "Cortelyou Road, with its quaint cafes, fine restaurants, gourmet grocers and shops is just a block away for added convenience." Well, yeah, Cortelyou Road is a (long) block away, but from Vista you're technically closer to Flatbush Avenue than to Cortelyou's best stretch (from the Farm to Vox Pop). Not surprisingly, Flatbush Avenue is not mentioned in the packet. One of the businesses featured in a collage of photographs in the packet is Belle & Maxie, which no longer exists on Cortelyou. And the map included in the packet shows Ditmas Park as being between Flatbush Avenue and Nostrand, and between Beverley Road and Church Avenue. We certainly don't want to start a debate on the boundaries of Ditmas Park, but I think we can all agree that Vista's map is way off.

There seemed to be a good turn out at the open house and a lot of people were milling around. The cheapest 1 bedroom starts at $335k and the average 2 bedroom is going for $530k. These prices seem comparable with those of the new condo on Stratford and Cortelyou. I guess when it comes down to it, do people want to be right across the street from the train or right across the street from Cortelyou's cool corner?