Rockrose pays $3M for retail in Brooklyn Heights adjacent to its St. Francis project

Rockrose Development through the entity Joralemon Retail L.L.C. paid $3 million to the entity 186 Remsen Street LLC for the retail and office building (O8) at 193 Joralemon Street in Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn.
The deal closed on May 29, 2024 and was recorded on June 5, 2024. The property has 4,550 square feet of built space. The sale price per built square foot is $659. (The price per square foot analysis is the transaction price divided by square feet as reported in public records and assumes no air rights have been sold.)
The seller bought the property on September 12, 2019, for $6.7 million. The signatory for the seller was Tony Greenberg. The signatory for Rockrose Development was Patricia Dunphy. The contract date was May 29, 2024. A related filing indicates the air rights for this building were stripped prior to the sale and assigned to 44 Court Street.

Rockrose Development paid $160 million to St. Francis College for a five-building site. This new property abuts 180 Remsen Street at the rear of 193 Joralemon Street.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer Rockrose Development purchased nine properties in five transactions for a total of $185.8 million and sold four properties in four transactions for a total of $94 million over the past 24 months.
The seller Tony Greenberg had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The office building with 1 residential unit in Brooklyn Heights has 4,550 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 22 feet and is 77 feet deep with a total lot size of 1,665 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is C5-2A which allows for up to 10 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 10 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The property is in the Borough Hall Skyscraper Historic District. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $3.3 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received $4,360 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

For the tax lot building, it received its initial certificate of occupancy on November 17, 2018. There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $1 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Brooklyn Heights, The bulk, or 26 percent of the 12 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 23 percent of the space. In sales, Brooklyn Heights has 2.6 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $697.7 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 5th highest in Brooklyn. For development, Brooklyn Heights has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 669,688 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 6 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of six of the nine commercial properties representing 405,327 square feet of the 680,100 square feet. The largest owner is Rockrose Development, followed by Scharfman Organization and then Roman Catholic Church.
On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 194,520 square feet. It is a 37-unit, 194,520 square-foot hotel/dormitory/shelter (R-1) building submitted by Tony Greenberg with plans filed September 11, 2018 and it has not been permitted yet.

The majority, or 52 percent of the 680,100 square feet of built space are office buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 40 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Tony Greenberg owned at least one commercial property with one residential unit in New York City with 4,550 square feet and a city-determined market value of $3.3 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio consists of at least a single office property. It is located in Brooklyn.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Rockrose Development owned at least 31 commercial properties with 5,561 residential units in New York City with 6,286,857 square feet and a city-determined market value of $1.6 billion. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $2 billion in debt, with top three lenders as Wells Fargo, MetLife, and Deutsche Pfandbriefbank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 72 percent of the 6,286,857 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with D4 properties next occupying 14 percent of the space. The bulk, or 43 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Queens next at 37 percent of the space.

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