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New York

Brooklyn Law School sells DoBro site to developers for $76.5M

Avery Hall, partners have teamed up on BK condo projects in the past

One Boerum Place (inset from top: Avery Hill founders Brian Ezra and Avi Fisher)
One Boerum Place (inset from top: Avery Hill founders Brian Ezra and Avi Fisher)

A trio of investors led by Avery Hall Investments bought a development site from Brooklyn Law School for $76.5 million at One Boerum Place, where they plan to develop a 160,000-square-foot mixed-use building.

The deal comes at a time when investors and lenders are weary about getting into new development projects, especially in place like Downtown Brooklyn where a huge supply of new rental product is coming online.

Midtown South-based Avery Hall, which focuses on new developments in Brooklyn, teamed up with past collaborators Allegra Holdings – a Spanish real estate investment firm – and Aria Development Group to buy the 40,000-square-foot office building, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The partners are working together on a 30-unit condominium at 465 Pacific Street in Boerum Hill and a planned 17-unit condo at 237 Carroll Street in Carroll Gardens.

Plans for the former Brooklyn Law School site aren’t yet finalized, but they will likely include razing the current building and replacing it with a 160,000-square-foot tower with residential and retail space, with the possibility of adding office space as well.

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Avery Hall principal Brian Ezra said he wasn’t concerned about the huge influx of new rental product coming to the market.

“On the rental side, there’s definitely a lot of product coming to market, but we think it’s all going to lease,” he said.

Savills Studley’s David Carlos, who negotiated the deal on behalf of Brooklyn Law along with colleague Ira Schuman, said non-profits continue to turn toward their real estate to help invest in future programming.

“The building is past its useful life for Brooklyn Law,” he said. “Given that One Boerum is the gateway to the Fulton Mall, the highest and best use for the site is a retail and residential development – strategically, it just made sense.”

The developers plan to break ground next year. The deal is the latest land sale for the law school, which has helped the school double its endowment over the past five years to roughly $225 million.

In 2013, the school sold a portfolio of six residential buildings in the borough to Kushner Companies, and last year sold another residential building at 2 Pierrepont Street to Florida Panthers owner Vincent Viola. Brooklyn Law School replaced those properties with a 22-story Residential Hall On State Street. [WSJ] — Rich Bockmann