Luxury apartments, parking to replace Brooklyn’s beloved Grand Prospect Hall

The iconic venue that made locals’ “dreams come true” is set to be demolished and replaced with high-end housing.

The new owners of Brooklyn’s Grand Prospect Hall wedding venue have filed permits to replace the 119-year-old building with a multifamily building, New York Yimby reported.

The Victorian-era building in which the Halkias family hosted events for 35 years is now slated to be demolished, 147 apartments, 180 underground parking spaces, an exercise room and multiple recreational spaces, including one on the roof built in its place.

The opulent Park Slope catering hall known for its long-running, “SNL”-spoofed TV commercial (in which Michael and Alice Halkias stood on the building’s center staircase and declared “We make your dreams come true!” as a 718 number appeared on the screen) was sold for $22.5 million last July following Michael Halkias’ May 2020 death. The 82-year-old reportedly passed away after contracting the coronavirus.  

The building purchase was part of a larger, more than $30 million 12-property deal along Prospect Avenue by Angelo Rigas through the LLC Gowanus Cubes. Rigas is only the fourth person to own the property since it was rebuilt in 1903.

Based on the units’ square footage, they’ll likely be condos. 

Despite more than 40,000 people signing a petition for the building to be landmarked and spared the wrecking ball, the new owners filed for its full demolition in August.

Neighborhood residents are “deeply saddened” by the building’s fate and remain hopeful a community space “designed in a style that would be reminiscent of the original Prospect Hall” can be somehow integrated into the new owner’s plans, or at least that some elements of the building can be preserved, said artist Jim Glaser.

An outspoken advocate of the building, Glaser told The Post the building’s “destruction is now in its final stages” from what he can see from his roof two blocks away and what workers have told him.