Forest City Closes $158M Sale of Downtown Brooklyn Development Site
By Liam La Guerre January 26, 2016 5:52 pm
reprints
Forest City Realty Trust has completed the sale of a vacant development site at 625 Fulton Street to fellow Brooklyn-based developer Rabsky Group for $158 million.
The sale of the property between Hudson Avenue and Rockwell Place, which offers more than 600,000 square feet of buildable space, closed on Jan. 13, according to city property records published today.
News of the transaction was first reported by Commercial Observer in November. A representative for Rabsky Group did not immediately return a request for comment today.
A Forest City spokeswoman contacted by CO about the closed sale referred a reporter to the company’s statement provided when the parties reached an agreement: “This sale is related to our stated corporate commitment to our shareholders to shore up our balance sheet by enhancing liquidity and de-levering through strategic dispositions” as Forest City prepared to become a real estate investment trust at the beginning of this year.
Darcy Stacom and William Shanahan of CBRE represented Forest City in the deal. The buyer didn’t have a broker in the deal, Ms. Stacom previously told CO.
The site sits across from Forest City’s 36-story residential building at 80 DeKalb Avenue, formerly known as 10 MetroTech fCenter.
Forest City demolished the seven-story, 359,000-square-foot office building at the site in 2013 and had plans to build a residential tower there, as CO previously reported. The property was home to the Internal Revenue Service and the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. It was also the site of Barton’s Candy Company, which closed in 1981.
Last year, Forest City was looking for a partner to develop the site or if it couldn’t find one, the firm was interested in selling it. The company was asking $185 million for it, according to Crain’s New York Business.
Additional reporting provided by Lauren Elkies Schram.
