A real estate developer relatively unknown in these parts is close to
a deal to purchase Brooklyn’s tallest building.
The Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, put on the market in June by its
current owner, HSBC bank, is in contract to be sold to the Dermot Company,
sources said. The 512-foot office building at 1 Hanson Place was expected
to sell for between $60 million and $90 million.
Officials with Dermot, a development firm that branched out from their
holdings in Colorado to become an up-and-coming player in the New York
real estate scene, would not confirm the purchase — but spoke briefly
on the rumors.
“Until the deal closes we’re not commenting on anything one
way or the other,” said Andrew McArthur, a broker with the company.
Asked if the company may have secured merely a management agreement on
the building with another buyer, he said, “We don’t manage anything
that we are not active investors in.”
A spokeswoman for HSBC, a London-based international bank, denied the
sale.
“We have made no such deal,” said HSBC’s Kathleen Rizzo
Young.
And Jon Caplan, the broker from Cushman & Wakefield who is handling
the sale, said nothing had been finalized, and he could not identify any
buyers.
From the time it was built in 1929 until 1962, the Williamsburgh Bank
building’s four-sided clock was the largest in the nation. The building
is a city landmark, but the grand limestone structure, which combines
Romanesque and Byzantine elements, is overdue for a facelift. Besides
HSBC, which is looking to vacate its eight floors, the building largely
houses dentists.
The Dermot Company, which has made a name for itself for both successful
luxury and mixed-use housing in the city, won a contract in 2003 to develop
two city lots on Manhattan’s West Side into 600 units of housing
for mixed-income residents through the city’s Department of Housing
Preservation and Development. The $170 million project, which includes
11,600 square feet of retail space, is scheduled to break ground next
spring.
But according to Councilwoman Letitia James, within whose district the
iconic building sits, the Williamsburgh building is planned not for mixed
incomes, but for luxury condominiums.
“I need a hook, I need a hook,” she told The Brooklyn Papers
after announcing at a Community Board 8 land use committee meeting on
Nov. 1 that she’d heard the building was sold for condos. “I
need more affordable housing. Right now as it’s proposed? Luxury
housing? No way.”
The Opal Apartments, a luxury housing complex in Kew Gardens, Queens,
reveals another side of what neighbors to the renovated bank building
might see when Dermot moves in.
The grandiose luxury building features a high-domed plaza entrance and
sweeping courtyard inside the gated complex, with rental apartments starting
at $1,155 for a studio, one-bedrooms for $1,470, two-bedrooms for $2,100
and three-bedrooms for $3,000 a month. And that’s all the way in
Queens.
While the Forest City Ratner development company was rumored to be considering
the Williamsburgh property, which is adjacent to a hub of their own development
activity at the Atlantic Terminal and Atlantic Center malls, officials
from the company this week said they were not involved in the project
or affiliated in any way with Dermot.
But Forest City Ratner will have an impact on the historic building with
the company’s plans to build three office towers, one as high as
620 feet, that will dwarf the Williamsburgh building. Those towers are
part of the company’s plans to build a professional basketball arena
and 17 other office and residential towers on property emanating from
the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues and stretching three
blocks into Prospect Heights.
