Kickstarter Sells Former Brooklyn HQ Building for $17M
By Andrew Coen February 10, 2025 4:23 pm
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A joint venture between Aperture Holdings and Greenmont Group paid $17 million to acquire a Brooklyn office building that was formerly the global headquarters of crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, Commercial Observer has learned.
The 32,879 square-foot building at 58 Kent Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, was sold by Kickstarter in an all-cash deal that closed Feb. 5. Kickstarter bought the industrial property in 2012 for $3.6 million to develop the property into its headquarters, The Real Deal previously reported.
The boutique creative office property has sat vacant for nearly five years since Kickstarter implemented a fully remote work policy during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The building will now be fully occupied by The Lighthouse, a Los Angeles-based media company that signed a 15-year lease, according to Newmark (NMRK), which brokered both the investment sale and lease.
Newmark’s Dan O’Brien, Caroline Hodes ,Loren Valla and Robbie Ferman arranged the sale, while Ryan Gessin negotiated the lease.
“Greenmont and Aperture are both thrilled by the tenant’s vision for the space,” Pir Granoff, a founding principal of Aperture Holdings, said in a statement. “58 Kent is the closest thing to a semi-urban ‘tech campus’ that we have in New York City, maybe outside of the Google/Alphabet offices.”
A source close to the deal said the creative office space at 58 Kent is ideal for a company like The Lighthouse, a division of Whalar, which offers physical hubs similar to its location in Venice, Calif. for digital creators and media talent. The Lighthouse facility at 58 Kent slated to open this spring will also consist of production facilities for video-enabled podcast suites, editing rooms, photography and music studios.
The property’s amenities include a 30-seat screening room and a rooftop terrace with a vegetable garden.
Aperture Holdings, which was co-founded by Granoff and Douglas Baillie, has been an active player in the Brooklyn market since the pandemic, acquiring mixed-use and multifamily assets. Granoff said the firm is now eyeing a “wider range of opportunistic deals” such as retail conversion and industrial properties in and outside of New York City.
The Greenmont Group, which was co-founded by Eyal Greenberg and Josh Honig, has primarily targeted industrial, office and multifamily transactions throughout the New York City metropolitan region and Florida.
Officials at Kickstarter did not immediately return a request for comment.
Andrew Coen can be reached at acoen@commercialobserver.com.
