Brooklyn Leads in Job Growth

The jobs are moving to Brooklyn. The borough is the “city’s fastest-growing job market and now accounts for 15.1 percent of jobs, a jump from 13.4 percent in 2000,” according to the New York Post, based on a report from Center for an Urban Future. Manhattan’s percentage of the job market is shrinking: 60.5 percent of all private-sector jobs are located there, down from 65.9 percent in 1982.
The number of jobs in Brooklyn grew 19 percent from 2000 to 2012, reported the Wall Street Journal. Retail jobs lead the growth, but health care, tech, design firms and manufacturers are also big. Retailers used to ignore Brooklyn but now they are flocking here. The paper pointed to Franklin Avenue in Crown Heights as an example of the trend. “The changes are evident down the once-gritty Franklin Avenue in Crown Heights, where vacant storefronts have given way to a parade of new avant-garde restaurants, boutiques and a wine shop in the past three years. At the Franklin Park beer garden, a sign on the wall proudly shows ‘Circa 2008.’ A few blocks away, Mayfield, which opened last year, serves dishes including $20 buttermilk fried quail and a $15 grilled octopus dish, complete with glazed Berkshire pork belly and arugula.”
“Creative and tech are everywhere and growing fast,” said Chris Havens, director of commercial property for Aptsandlofts.com. He predicted the Sunset Park waterfront will be the next big creative hub in his column in the New York Observer. “I say the area will be the future home of hundreds of modern manufacturing tenants, artists, office workers and craft tenants.”
Source:The Brownstoner

City Releases RFP for Brooklyn Heights Library Site

The Economic Development Corporation just released a request for proposals for “qualified developers to purchase and redevelop a premier development site in Brooklyn Heights located at 280 Cadman Plaza West” — in other words, the Brooklyn Heights Library branch.  The City has said it wants to sell the 52-year-old library building and the 26,000-square-foot lot it sits on to a developer to raise funds for repairs throughout the library system. The building would be demolished to make way for a new residential development. The RFP asks that the development includes a new, 20,000-square-foot library branch. The city recently said it would hold onto another Brooklyn library threatened with a similar fate, the Pacific Street branch. Proposals for the Brooklyn Heights site are due by September 9. The Library expects to present its Board of Trustees with a recommended development partner by the end of 2013, and then the developer will go through the ULURP process. 
Source: The Brownstoner

"Disaster" Housing Headed for Downtown

A prototype for emergency housing is going up in Downtown Brooklyn, right next to the Office of Emergency Management. Designed by Dumbo’s Garrison Architects for manufacturer American Manufactured Systems and Services of Vienna, Va., it’s a three-story, three-unit building with two three-bedroom apartments over one one-bedroom, handicapped accessible apartment. What makes the housing suitable for emergency situations is how quickly it can be built. Each unit is 40 feet long and comes preassembled. A contractor clips the units together and hooks up the utilities. They even have balconies and photovoltaic panels on the roof to generate electricity. The design meets all city codes, and the concept could eventually be used for permanent high-density housing of no more than four stories, said the architect.
Source: Brownstoner.

330-334 Saint Marks Avenue - Available For Sale

Massey Knakal has been exclusively retained to market the sale of the development site located at 330-334 Saint Marks Avenue. The subject property is located on the south side of Saint Marks Avenue between Underhill and Washington Avenues in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn.

The subject property is a 50' x 100' development site located in a R6B zoning district, consisting of approximately 10,000 buildable square feet. Currently there is a 5,000 square foot one-story warehouse on the site. The asking price is $2,200,000.

For additional information please follow the link below:
Massey Knakal Realty Services - 330-334 St. Marks Avenue

Verizon to Move 1,100 Workers From Lower Manhattan to Brooklyn

 

Verizon's headquarters at 140 West Street in 2008

Verizon announced on Tuesday that it would move 1,100 employees out of its headquarters and switching center at 140 West Street in Lower Manhattan and offer half of the 31-story tower for sale or lease.
The employees, most in customer service, will join 300 colleagues next year at 395 Flatbush Avenue Extension in Downtown Brooklyn. Over all, there are about 10,000 Verizon employees in New York City. That will not change, the company said.
For the time being, the company’s headquarters will remain at 140 West Street, a designated New York City landmark that Verizon has meticulously restored twice in the last 12 years: after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 and again after Hurricane Sandy last year.
As for the slightly longer term, Richard J. Young, a company spokesman, said, “Our headquarters will remain in New York City.”
Source: The New York Times 

Stephen Palmese's 1Q13 Downtown Brooklyn Property Sales Report

As the leading advisor to property owners and investors in Brooklyn's commercial real estate arena, I would like to share with you my 2013 first quarter sales report for Downtown Brooklyn, as well as Massey Knakal's Brooklyn Property Sales Report. Some highlights of the first quarter:

• In the first quarter of 2013, the Brooklyn investment sales market saw 165 closed transactions with an aggregate value of $470M;
• The Downtown Brooklyn investment sales market saw 12 transactions with an aggregate value of $92M;
• The Brooklyn Navy Yard re-development;
• City Point - Phase II;
• Atlantic Yards - Phase I, Part II.

 For more information on each sale, including a full market recap, please click the following links:

Stephen Palmese's Downtown Brooklyn 1Q13 Property Sales Report

Massey Knakal's Brooklyn 1Q13 Property Sales Report

If you would like to discuss any of this information at length, or if you would like Massey Knakal to create a Complimentary Opinion of Value for any commercial property that you own, please do not hesitate to contact me, Stephen Palmese, at 718-606-7052 or spalmese@masseyknakal.com.

Thor Equities pays $23 Million for Barclays-adjacent properties

Joe Sitt’s Thor Equities closed late last week on a residential and retail portfolio adjacent to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn for $23 million in an off-market transaction.

The mixed-use development, known as Atlantic Gardens, consists of 24 rental units and nine retail shops along Atlantic between Third and Fourth avenues, says seller Bennat Berger of BCB Properties. BCB and Arik Lifshitz of DSA Management had purchased the assets, 525-541 Atlantic Avenue, for $10.93 million just two years before, according to city records, but Berger said the actual price was closer to $11.25 million.

Why did the seller opt to unload now? “Because we made a lot of money,” Berger said.
DSA, a Manhattan-based family-owned developer, and Berger bought the properties in a joint venture with the intention of holding them after making improvements, Lifshitz said. But the unsolicited offer from Thor was “too good to pass up,” he said. “We decided to go ahead and reallocate our equity and our time to new projects.”

Sitt plans to “reposition” the retail, Berger said. Sitt was not immediately available for comment.

Earlier this year, Thor bought the mixed-use property at 292-294 Atlantic Avenue, down the block at the corner of Smith Street, for $5.2 million – well over the $4 million ask, reports show.
The area has seen retail rents rise in the shadow of the Barclays Center, which opened last October. Michael Pintchik of local landlord Pintchik Development said rents on Flatbush Avenue have risen from $50 or $55 per square foot to more than $175 per square foot while the Barlcays complex was under construction.
Source: The Real Deal