Bruce Ratner, CEO of Forest City Ratner Companies, picked up a six-story Clinton Hill rental building for $24 million as a personal investment, sources told The Real Deal.
The 38,000-square-foot elevator building at 105 Grand Avenue opened in 2012. Brooklyn investor Yoel Gruber and partners developed it, but Adam Verner’s Springhouse Partners bought it for $16 million that year and ultimately leased it up. Four years later, Springhouse sold it.
Aaron Jungreis
Springhouse received a 421a tax abatement for the building, though the rents are closer to market-rate than rent-stabilized levels. Rent averages $3,228 per month at the building, according to market materials. Rents are as high as $5,804 for a three-bedroom.
A source said the 421a tax abatement expires in about eight years.
Apart from Forest City Ratner, Ratner has been buying Brooklyn rental buildings, largely in Williamsburg and Prospect Heights. In March, an affiliate of Forest City Ratner [TRDataCustom] bought the 72-unit Williamsburg Social building at 250 Bedford Avenue for $55 million. Sources at the time had denied that Ratner was the buyer, though the deed featured his signature.
Forest City transitioned to a real estate investment trust in January, resulting in the layoffs and exits of key executives and employees. Meanwhile, in July, Ratner’s wife Pamela Lipkin filed for divorce.
Representatives for Forest City Ratner [TRDataCustom] and Springhouse Partners declined to comment. Rosewood Realty Group’s Aaron Jungreis represented both sides.
Springhouse, which is active in both New York City and South Florida, bought a rental building at 51 Irving Plaza for $55 million in May.