Beer-Importing Holterbosch Family Offloads LIC Warehouse for $95M

The Holterbosch family, former owners of a German beer importing and distribution business, has sold a Long Island City, Queens, warehouse a decade after the death of its patriarch.

Dallas-based Ground Lease REIT, an affiliate of commercial real estate private equity firm Montgomery Street Partners, bought the property at 10-01 45th Road on the Long Island City waterfront for $95 million, according to a deed filing in property records made public Thursday.

The Holterbosch clan has held the property since about 1968, public records indicate, despite the death of H. Dieter Holterbosch in 2016 at age 95. The company is named Hans Holterbosch Inc. and honors its founder who died in 1960. It is not clear if the company, once a major importer and distributor of Lowenbrau beer, is still active.

Dieter’s daughter Heidi, who seems to have been his only survivor, signed the paperwork for the deed transfer to Ground Lease REIT.

It’s unclear who brokered the deal. The Holterbosch family, which lists an office address at 375 Park Avenue, could not be reached for comment, while Ground Lease REIT did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The property along Vernon Boulevard is just feet from the Eleventh Street Basin inlet of the East River, which probably served as a logistical benefit in the past, and could also offer Ground Lease REIT development opportunities as the neighborhood continues to transform.

In 2017, Heidi Holterbosch was looking for a buyer for an 8-acre site hugging Newtown Creek at 55-01 Second Street, which had been rezoned as residential as the city prepared for the redevelopment of Hunters Point South.

Listed for $350 million, that site was eventually razed by TF Cornerstone to make way for housing developments in 2021.

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.