Meadow Partners Sells 57 Willoughby Street for $48M
By Abigail Nehring August 9, 2024 12:42 pm
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Jeffrey Kaplan’s Meadow Partners let go of the former headquarters of Helen Keller Services for the Blind in Downtown Brooklyn for a lowball price.
Meadow Partners sold the six-story office building at 57 Willoughby Street for $48 million to a group of investors, including Prosper Property Group Founder Damien Smith, Zuccarello Zerillo & Company Principal Peter Zuccarello and GRA Equities Founder Gary Romaniello, according to property records made public Friday.
That’s 11 percent less than the $54 million Meadow Partners paid in 2016 to acquire the building from the 131-year-old Helen Keller Services, which moved its headquarters two blocks away to 180 Livingston Street the following year.
Smith, Zuccarello, Romaniello and Kaplan did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Kaplan poured about $10 million into renovating the 96,000-square-foot property, replacing the building’s façade, installing new elevators and HVAC systems and adding two new lobbies, as Commercial Observer previously reported.
Housing Works, the New York City AIDS and homelessness charity known for its chain of thrift stores, has been a tenant at 57 Willoughby since 2004, and the Jewish Child Care Association inked a deal for the top three floors in 2021.
The deal, signed July 31, splits the interest in the property among four limited liability companies linked to Smith, Zuccarello and Romaniello, according to property records.
Irish-American developer Smith acquired the largest stake — 74.5 percent — while Zuccarello, who runs an accounting firm in Queens, took 20.5 percent and Romaniello took 5 percent, property records show. It’s unclear if brokers were involved in the deal.
New York-based commercial real estate lending platform Argentic Investment Management provided the new owners a $31.2 million loan for the acquisition, according to property records. A spokesperson for Argentic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
JLL’s David Giancola and Ethan Stanton brokered the sale while Aaron Niedermayer, also of JLL, arranged the financing for the buyers. A spokesperson for JLL did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Abigail Nehring can be reached at anehring@commercialobserver.com.
