A California-based developer has picked up an ownership stake valued at $118 million in an office tower in the heart of Downtown Brooklyn, property records show.
The HomeFed Corporation, which develops residential projects in California and Virginia, issued common stock earlier this year valued at $118 million in exchange for a 49 percent ownership stake in the 800,000-square-foot Brooklyn Renaissance Plaza at 350 Jay Street, records filed with the city today show.
The deal was part of a larger transfer of real estate assets owned by the insurance and real estate holdings firm Leucadia National Corporation to HomeFed in exchange for a larger investment stake in the California company.
“The acquisition of these properties from Leucadia provides HomeFed with an extraordinary opportunity to drive long term earnings growth and to increase shareholder value,” HomeFed CEO Paul Borden said in a statement when the deal was announced earlier this year. “We already have a solid asset base and these new properties complement that base while also adding significant diversity to our existing real estate portfolio.”
According to Leucadia’s second-quarter financial report, the insurance and real-estate holding company now owns 65 percent of HomeFed’s outstanding common stock, but has limited its voting rights so that it does not represent a majority voting bloc.
In 1998, Leucadia partnered with Queens-based Muss Development to build the 32-story office tower at and an adjoining 665-room Marriot Hotel on top of a city-owned park and parking garage adjacent to Metrotech and the Brooklyn county courthouse.