Silverstein Gets Control of Brooklyn Tower From Michael Stern in $672M Deal

JDS Development founder and CEO Michael Stern finally loosened his grasp on the soaring 74-story Brooklyn Tower. 

Mezzanine lender Silverstein Capital Partners took control of the mostly vacant 143-unit condominium tower at 9 Dekalb Avenue on June 10 in a $672 million deal, according to property records made public Monday and a source with knowledge of the deal. The sale closed just ahead of a Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) foreclosure auction scheduled for last month.

The deal comes after JDS defaulted in March on the property’s $240 million mezzanine loan once it failed to find buyers for the recently completed luxury units, The Real Deal reported. Silverstein issued the loan in 2019, bringing JDS’s debt on the project to about $664 million.

Silverstein bought the tower’s senior debt earlier this year about a month before initiating foreclosure proceedings, according to TRD.

It’s been exactly a decade since JDS revealed the designs drawn up by SHoP Architects to build Brooklyn’s first residential supertall.

The troubled tower is famous not only for its malevolent aura — resembling a villain’s lair from “The Lord of the Rings” — but also for the high price tag JDS hoped to fetch from affluent home hunters looking for a place in Downtown Brooklyn. Listing prices for units range from $950,000 for studios to $7.9 million for a penthouse, and residential developer Stern fell into trouble when sales didn’t go as planned.

A spokesperson for JDS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Silverstein declined to comment. 

JLL (JLL)’s Brett Rosenberg handled the UCC Foreclosure auction and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Abigail Nehring can be reached at anehring@commercialobserver.com.