Starrett City, the 140 acre Brooklyn development for working class New Yorkers, is on the auction block after the successful sale of Peter Cooper and Stuyvesant Town. The owners have seen the potential windfall of selling the complex of moderately priced apartments while the real estate market is still near it’s high point.

The complex is amazing. I remember driving by it as a boy, coming out of practically nowhere with the self contained city in a city. The property was designed to have it all, its own schools, churches, shopping. It was amazing to see as they built it.

The complex, whose owner changed its name in recent years to the more chic-sounding Spring Creek Towers, is the largest federally subsidized rental complex in the country. Its approximately 14,000 residents live in 46 towers surrounded by well-manicured lawns. They have their own schools, churches, synagogues, shopping center, post office and power plant.
The sale by the owner, Starrett City Associates, a group of investors, is the latest indication that even bland brick buildings are a sought-after commodity in a booming real estate market that has driven prices skyward for everything from condominiums to tenements in New York City.
The Starrett City auction, which may take place in January, will follow the recent $5.4 billion sale of the 11,200 apartments at Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town. Tenants there fear the loss over time of an increasingly rare middle-class redoubt in Manhattan.
Starrett City is relatively far from flashy Manhattan, but real estate executives still expect the bidding for the complex, which has 5,881 apartments, to exceed $1 billion.

Brooklyn Tract, Home to 14,000, Goes on Block - New York Times.