Milan developer Estate4 purchases Red Hook space for $11.8 million

202 Coffey Street (credit: PropertyShark)
202 Coffey Street (credit: PropertyShark)

Milan developer Estate4 has purchased a 130,000-square-foot factory space in Red Hook for $11.8 million, the Commercial Observer reported. Led by developer and urban planner Alessandro Cajrati Crivelli, the company will work with architecture firm Adjmi & Andreoli to transform the space into a photography school and series of artist studios.

“We fell in love with the structure inside, which is reminiscent of the Palazzo Grassi in Venice,” Aldo Andreoli of Adjmi & Andreoli told the Observer, referring to the building, located at 202 Coffey Street on the corner of Ferris Street. “As architects we are excited to touch such a beautiful building.”

The team will first work to unearth a central courtyard that was covered with concrete and steel in the 1950s; unseal original windows that have since been filled with concrete blocks; and remove a red paint job marking the exterior, exposing original brick, before building the school and five to six art studios are created, the Observer said.

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The firm is also in the process of converting Soho’s 50 Varick Street into a U.S. outpost for London-based Spring Studios and is reworking plans at the former New York Dock Co. warehouse at 160 Imply Street in Red Hook, which will become a 72-unit mixed-use condo loft building.

The Red Hook property, meanwhile, is expected to be completed by mid-2014. [NYO] — Hayley Kaplan