Crown, Prospect Heights Home To 1 In 10 New BK Apartments: Study

PROSPECT HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — In what will likely come as no surprise to neighbors watching the development boom of the last several years, both Crown and Prospect Heights have been named two of the most "apartment-crazed" neighborhoods of the borough.

A new study from apartment website RentCafe found that Crown and Prospect Heights are among the Brooklyn neighborhoods that have added the most large apartment buildings in the last five years.

In fact, taken together, the two neighborhoods account for at least 11 percent of the apartments built in Brooklyn during that time period, according to the study, which counted only buildings with 50 or more units built between 2017 and 2021.

According to the researchers, 964 apartments fitting the criteria were built in Prospect Heights and 806 were built in Crown Heights during that time period.

The numbers landed Prospect Heights seventh and Crown Heights eighth on a list of Brooklyn's most apartment-crazed neighborhoods.

Downtown Brooklyn, where at least 3,359 new units have been built in the last five years, was first on Brooklyn's list, and 11th on a national ranking of the most apartment-crazed neighborhoods. The neighborhood is home to 19 percent of apartments built in the borough in the last five years, according to the study.

Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan and Hunters Point in Queens also made the national list, which analyzed neighborhoods across the 50 largest U.S. cities.

"...The 20 most active neighborhoods for new apartments were mostly hyper-urban, centrally located areas, that are highly sought after by Millennial and Gen Z renters," researchers wrote. "Despite the fact that downtown areas haven’t always been desirable places to live in, that has certainly changed in the last decade."

Here's a look at the neighborhood ranking in Brooklyn:

1. Downtown Brooklyn — 3,359 units built
2. Williamsburg — 2,650 units built
3. Bushwick — 1,792 units built
4. Greenpoint — 1,689 units built
5. Fort Greene — 1,194 units built
6. East New York — 1,002 units built
7. Prospect Heights — 964 units built
8. Crown Heights — 806 units built
9. Gowanus — 802 units built
10. Coney Island — 672 units built
11. Flatbush — 543 units built

Find the full RentCafe study here.