The stretch of East River shoreline running through Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was not always lined with glass towers and roof decks. For most of the twentieth century it was an industrial corridor, where sugar refineries, oil tanks, and manufacturing plants defined the skyline. The story of how that shoreline filled with condominium towers is one of deliberate rezoning, cultural momentum, and capital moving at scale.
The 2005 rezoning
The turning point came on May 11, 2005, when the City Council approved the Bloomberg administration's rezoning of the Greenpoint and Williamsburg waterfronts. The plan covered nearly 200 blocks and allowed housing on land that had been zoned for manufacturing, while keeping some industrial areas in place. It also required developers of waterfront sites to build public walkways along the water and offered them extra floor area in exchange for including affordable apartments.
Before the rezoning, the neighborhood had already built a reputation as a place for artists and young professionals priced out of Manhattan. That gave early developers a ready market of buyers who wanted to be close to the city's energy without paying Tribeca prices, and the rezoning gave those developers the legal framework to build at height.
A wave of construction followed and lined the waterfront with residential towers over the next decade. Among the first were the two Northside Piers condominium towers, developed by Toll Brothers City Living with partners and completed in 2008 and 2009, with a third tower built later as rentals by a different developer. This site shares their name but has no connection to them.
Price trajectories and market maturation
In the first years after the rezoning, Williamsburg waterfront condos sat in the middle of the New York luxury market. They offered real views and building amenities at prices that compared well with similar apartments in Manhattan, and that drew a first wave of buyers looking for value in a neighborhood they already liked.
The market has matured since then. By the mid-2010s, the Williamsburg waterfront was no longer pitched as a value alternative to Manhattan but as a destination in its own right, and new buildings marketed themselves on finishes, the caliber of amenities, and the names of their architects more than on price. The guide to how waterfront condo towers are designed looks at what those buildings have in common.
The role of amenities in defining market position
In a market full of river views, the view alone stops setting a building apart. What buyers compare instead is the quality and completeness of what a building offers residents.
The first towers after the rezoning set a template that later buildings competed against, typically a staffed lobby, a fitness room, a shared roof deck or terrace, a residents' lounge, and garage parking, all within walking distance of the L train and close to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Later buildings added to that list because buyers wanted building amenities without giving up walkability or transit. Williamsburg could offer both, with dense street life inland and the river at the end of the block, which set it apart from waterfront areas where residents need a car.
Neighborhood infrastructure and long-term value
Real estate value along any waterfront depends heavily on the neighborhood around it, and in Williamsburg that neighborhood has grown considerably over the past two decades.
The East River Ferry began service in June 2011 with stops in Greenpoint and North and South Williamsburg, and since May 2017 the route has run as part of NYC Ferry. The L train's Canarsie Tunnel, damaged by Hurricane Sandy, was repaired without the full 15-month shutdown once planned, through night and weekend work that finished in April 2020. Domino Park opened in June 2018 on the site of the former Domino Sugar Refinery, adding a quarter mile of public waterfront at the corridor's southern end.
Shops and restaurants along Bedford Avenue and the streets around it kept multiplying, and hotels, rooftop bars, and destination restaurants made the neighborhood a place people visit as well as live. For residents that means more to do within walking distance, though it also means busier weekends.
Current market conditions and the demand outlook
Like the rest of the city's high-end market, the Williamsburg waterfront is sensitive to interest rates and to the wider economy. New supply on the water itself is limited, since much of the waterfront land opened up by the 2005 rezoning has now been built on, and new development in New York City takes years to plan and approve.
Limited new supply can support resale values in the buildings from the first development wave, but age brings its own costs. Those towers are now well into their second decade, which means facade inspections and repairs, replacement of mechanical systems and amenities, and in larger buildings the city's carbon emission limits under Local Law 97. A buyer looking at a first-wave building should weigh both sides, and the guide to new development and resale condos sets out the documents that show how a building is handling them.
For a buyer, the useful questions are about the individual building and apartment, such as its position relative to the water, its floor height and orientation, its age and maintenance history, the health of its reserve fund, and how well its amenities have been kept up.
Two decades on
The change from industrial shoreline to residential neighborhood took about twenty years. It depended on a zoning decision, a neighborhood people already wanted to live in, and a long run of private construction. The public side of the plan is still being finished, and Bushwick Inlet Park, the large waterfront park the 2005 rezoning promised, opened a new section in June 2026 with more parcels still under way.