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Jehovah’s Witnesses portfolio could fetch as much as $1B
As TRD first reported, religious group is marketing 3 properties including Watchtower headquarters
In a reversal of sorts, buyers are knocking on the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ door, hoping to grab up pieces of its massive Brooklyn headquarters complex. Industry experts say the properties could go for a combined $1 billion.
As The Real Deal first reported earlier this month, the religious organization is looking to sell three properties, including its 733,000-square-foot headquarters 25-30 Columbia Heights in Brooklyn Heights, known as the Watchtower. The group is also selling a residential building at 124 Columbia Heights, and a 135,000-square-foot development site at 85 Jay Street in Dumbo.
Jehovah’s Witnesses has been selling off its properties in the area for years now, part of a planned relocation of the group’s headquarters upstate, to Warwick in Orange County, the New York Daily News reported.
The group sold a five-building portfolio in 2013 to a group including Jared Kushner’s Kushner Properties, Aby Rosen’s RFR Realty, Invesco and LIVWRK, banking $375 million. The group is upgrading the buildings and converting them into a hub for high-tech offices. That project is known as Dumbo Heights.
The Witnesses bought their headquarters building from Squibb Pharmaceuticals for $3 million in 1969. [NYDN] – Ariel Stulberg