NYC Sentinel

Bushwick's 550 Irving Plaza Lofts, where AptsandLofts.com's Richie Maggio held an open house in early September. Photo: Spencer Bailey

Richie Maggio says he’s learned to not only sell apartments but also gentrification. Maggio, a senior project manager for AptsandLofts.com’s rental division, has been a broker of Brooklyn units, many on a high-end scale, for four years. From his office on Driggs Avenue in Williamsburg, he spends his time marketing new, or renovated, apartments in the borough, some in Park Slope and Williamsburg, and others in developing neighborhoods – Bushwick, Greenpoint, Bedford-Stuyvesant.

At a recent open house for a near-finished development in Bushwick, Maggio was dressed deliberately casual – jeans, an untucked green button-down shirt and brown leather shoes. And though only three people showed up, more than 100 people have toured the place in the last month alone, Maggio says.

His pitch about the building, 550 Irving Plaza Lofts, made the building sound like a Manhattan high-rise. “Gym. Laundry. Jacuzzi on the rooftop. Swimming. They come home to relax,” he says. “It’s not just a place where they come to sleep, shower, eat and then go to work the next day.”

And it’s all in Bushwick – a neighborhood, Maggio says, that’s rapidly changing. “It’s only getting better, because Bushwick’s a very industrial area,” he says. “Back in the day, it was all just factories. Now they’re building them into lofts.”

That Bushwick is becoming gentrified is nothing new – Robert Sullivan, in 2006, wrote “Psst… Have You Heard About Bushwick?”, an article for The New York Times Magazine about just that – but buildings chockfull of amenities, for which Maggio is the broker, are certainly a more recent development amidst this gradual process.

The big reason for much of the gentrification, Maggio says, is the L train – first, it was the Lower East Side, then Williamsburg and now Bushwick. “The L train takes you to Union Square, which is an awesome, central meeting point,” he says.

As for the future, Maggio expects enormous growth in Bushwick, with more buildings just like this one. “It’s an industrial neighborhood that’s being gentrified,” he says. “Come out, walk around and kind of get a feel.”

— Spencer Bailey