Pardon Me For Asking: Craig's List

As seen from the Carroll Street Bridge, 365 Bond Street in background, 363 Bond Street in foreground

365 Bond Street at First Street

At Second Street

365 Bond Street apartment listings on Craig's List

Pardon me for asking, but doesn't it seem a bit surprising that 365 Bond Street, the 12-story rental development by Lightstone Group in Gowanus, has felt the need to advertise its apartments on Craig's List? The developer is now offering a month free, 'end of summer specials', and telling people to ask about 'incentive information' on the building's own site. Could this be an indication that, perhaps, the units in this building are not renting out as fast as anticipated?

Just search Craig's List for 'apartments for rent' in Gowanus (or Carroll Gardens) and you will come across quite a few listings for units at 365 Bond Street.

The luxury rental development on the shore of the Gowanus Canal, an EPA Superfund, was completed in early 2016. Of the 430 apartments in the building, 83 were set aside as 'affordable'. The market rate apartments were offered for rent this past March through Douglass Elliman, which operates a 'leasing gallery' right inside the building. By the beginning of April, the first tenants moved in.

The rent for the apartments currently available range from $2,483 a month for a studio apartment to over $6,800 for a two bedroom with a terrace. Yes, the apartments are very nice, but the rooms are rather small. The amenities in the building are awesome, but perhaps not enough to justify the rental price?

We keep on hearing from our politicians (and developers) that there is a huge deficit of apartments in the area. If that is the case, one would imagine that the building would have been fully rented by now and that the developer would not need to offer rental incentives.

More apartments will be available in Gowanus in the near future. Just next door to 365 Bond Street, a 12-story sister building at 363 Bond Street will be completed in 2017. It will add another 268 units to the development complex.

Councilman Brad Lander has been pushing hard for an overall rezoning of the Gowanus Canal corridor from mostly manufacturing to mixed use, which will open the floodgates to more residential developments similar or even larger that the Lightstone development. That will mean thousands of new apartments may soon come on the market in Gowanus.
That's rather ambitious for a neighborhood that sits squarely in a flood zone and includes one of the most toxic waterways in all of the United States. An environmental clean-up of the Gowanus Canal is planned, but is still years away from completion.

In the meantime, those adventurous enough to move into these new buildings will have to deal with foul odors emanating from the canal and with rats, as it would appear. As the photos below show, rodent bait stations have been place every few feet along the circumference of 365 Bond Street.

***And one more thing: I have heard that those who won the lottery for one of the 83 affordable apartment units at 365 Bond Street have not been allowed to move into the building yet. Apparently, Lightsone is waiting to fill all the market rate units before letting the lottery winners move into the building.
Is that correct? Can someone shed some light on this rumor?