Stirring up Williamsburg REALTY CHECK
One ‘sweet’ $3B development
AS Jed Walentas’ Two Trees Management presses its quest for one brave office tenant to fill the former Domino Sugar Refinery site, the $3 billion, 11acre Brooklyn project is surging ahead on all fronts.
Since leasing began in May, 325 Kent Ave., the 16-story apartment tower in the shape of a square donut, has officially opened. The first of four planned new residential buildings at Two Trees’ Williamsburg waterfront site, it will have 522 units including 104 affordable to lower-income fami- lies. (An astounding 87,000 applications were received for the affordable units.)
Meanwhile, we’ve learned, celebrated chef Missy Robbins will launch a new restaurant there next year. Robbins, who earned Michelin stars at Manhattan’s now-closed A Voce, also owns and operates another Williamsburg eatery, the thriving Lilia, not far away.
The not-yet-named new Domino restaurant will have about 4,000 square feet. There’s no word yet on what kind of food it will serve.
Two Trees broke ground in April on another of the Domino site’s planned residential buildings, 206 Kent Ave., which is to open in 2019. Two more will follow. The entire Domino project is to have 2,800 rental apartments in four buildings, more than 700 of them “affordable,” plus 500,000 square feet of offices.
Also, Domino Park is scheduled to open in summer 2018 — long before the other three apartment towers are finished. The park, designed by High Line chief designer James Corner Field Operations, will boast a waterfront esplanade including an elevated walkway incorporating artifacts from the former sugarproducing plant.
“Weaving in industrial remnants of the factory, Domino Park will serve as a living, breathing reminder of the history of this storied neighborhood,” Walentas said.
Some of the remnants, such as 36-foot-tall cylindrical tanks, were taken from the former refinery building. The structure dates from 1856 and was used to refine sugar until 2004.
Walentas hopes to lease the entire structure’s 380,000 square feet — including several new, 15,000-square-foot “glass box” floors at the top — to a single tenant likely drawn from the creative or tech field.
The building that’s the historic home to fancy-gadget emporium Hammacher Schlemmer has gotten the boutique-office treatment. Landlord ABS Partners Real Estate, which bought 145 E. 57th St. in partnership withh Benson Investment last fall for $62.75 million, has completed a capital improvements program to create 64,000 square feet of “curated” office space.
The upgrade, which doesn’t affect the Hammacher Schlemmer store, added a 2,650-squarefoot penthouse and six prebuilt floors.
ABS is offering new tenants full-floor opportunities from 2,600 to 5,336 square feet. An ABS team of John Brod, Robert Finkelstein and Alex Kaskel are in charge of leasing.
A total of 26,172 square feet are available on five of the building’s 12 floors, with asking rents from $70 to $90 per square foot. Women’s couture designer Michael Boris, who calls himself “the master of anonymous luxury,” will be less anonymous on Lexington Avenue. Boris is adding a new, 350-square-foot storefront at 979 Lexington between East 70th and 71st streets to complement his original shop across the street at no. 970. The opening was timed to coincide with New York Fashion Week. Fashion-conscious Douglas Elliman retail chair Faith Hope Consolo, with her firm’s Corey Shuster, acted as the broker for both the tenant and landlord. The rent is $126,000 a year.