BrightSpire Sells LIC Office Building to Pearl Realty at $36M Discount

Commercial real estate investment trust BrightSpire Capital has offloaded an office and retail building in Long Island City, Queens, for $28 million, according to city records made public this week. The price is $36.3 million less than what the building sold for three years ago.

BrightSpire, using the entity BRSP Paragon, sold the seven-story building at 21-02 49th Avenue — also known as the Paragon Building — to Jack Guttman’s Pearl Realty Management, which used the entity 2100 49 Ave, records show.

David Palame, general counsel, executive vice president and secretary at BrightSpire, signed the deal for the seller, while attorney Alan Weiss signed for the buyer, according to records.

The new sale comes at a roughly 56 percent discount from the $64.3 million BrightSpire paid for the building in 2023, property records show.

It’s unclear who brokered the deal, as well as why BrightSpire decided to offload the property at such a discount. Spokespeople for BrightSpire and Pearl Realty did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Built in 1916, the Paragon Building sits on the corner of 21st Street and 49th Avenue, and was redeveloped around 2018 by Related Companies and Studios Architecture into modern office and retail space.

A former retail tenant at the base of the building was Starbucks, but the coffee shop’s location there has closed along with dozens of others in New York City following a nationwide downsizing effort from Starbucks.

News of Pearl Realty’s acquisition of 21-02 49th Avenue comes after the Brooklyn-based real estate company sold the development site at 97 West Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, to Jay Group for $130 million in December, as Commercial Observer previously reported.

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.