Large Vinegar Hill development site sells for $25M

Buyer hopes to attract major national retailers

Stephen Palmese and 39-53 Jay Street
Stephen Palmese and 39-53 Jay Street

A large development site in Brooklyn’s Vinegar Hill neighborhood has sold for $25 million and is likely to attract major national retailers, the New York Observer reported.

The site, located at 39-53 Jay Street, currently holds a three-story, 80,000-square-foot manufacturing property. “This site has the largest footprint in Vinegar Hill, and possibly in all of the greater Downtown Brooklyn market,” Stephen Palmese, the director of sales at Massey Knakal and the exclusive broker on the transaction, told the Observer. “The ability to offer big box retail could really change the landscape.”

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Palmese declined to name the buyer, but said that he had so far been focusing his resources on projects in Williamsburg. Few years ago, a rezoning changed Vinegar Hill from a strictly manufacturing area into a retail/residential hybrid, paving the way for large-scale development. Other projects in the area include a Massey Knakal-marketed rental building at 99 Gold Street, as The Real Deal previously reported.

The buyer is hoping to lure retailers such as Whole Foods, Crate & Barrel or a range of “medium boxers” of that level, Palmese told the Observer, thus advancing the gentrification in the neighborhood, which is close to DUMBO and the Brooklyn Bridge Park. [NYO]  –Hiten Samtani