The exterior and interior of 40 Willow Place

Flipped and sold. The townhouse at 40 Willow Place in Brooklyn — the single-family home with the borough’s highest tax assessment — sold for $7.7 million in its second sale in less than a year, Curbed reported. [more]

From left: the Tobacco Warehouse, a rendering of its redesign (source: Curbed) and architect Jonathan Marvel

An overhauled Tobacco Warehouse in Brooklyn Bridge Park will include a “flexible performance space” and 1,000 square feet set aside for local artists in an 18,000-square-foot enclosed building, Curbed reported. The currently roofless structure was the home of theater troupe St. Ann’s Warehouse until about a year ago. [more]

From left: Paul Travis, a City Point rendering and BCTC President Gary LaBarbera

UPDATED, 4:54 p.m., Mar. 29: The Building and Construction Trades Council, a union that represents construction workers, has ended its negotiations for a labor agreement with the developers of City Point, the 1.8 million-square-foot residential and commercial development in Downtown Brooklyn, according to a press release from the developers. The talks focused on using unionized labor at the project. [more]

MNS CEO Andrew Barrocas and One Brooklyn Bridge Park

Despite the still coldish weather, the Brooklyn Heights waterfront real estate market is getting hot, the New York Daily News reported. For example, a unit at One Brooklyn Bridge Park – a former Jehovah’s Witness printing plant that is now a 449-unit luxury condominium property – could set a sale record for the borough. [more]

From left: Stanley Chera, 490 Fulton Street and the interior of a student unit

Harrison Street Real Estate Capital, a Chicago-based real estate investment management firm, has bought dozens of Long Island University Brooklyn graduate apartments for $62.7 million, according to records filed with the city today. [more]

Dumbo warehouse (source: Brooklyn Paper and Stefano Giovannini)

Dumbo could soon see a massive new retail center along Jay Street, after last month’s $25 million sale of a block-wide warehouse to Silverstone Property Group, the Brooklyn Paper reported.

The nearly football field-sized building, located between Water and Plymouth streets in Dumbo’s historic district, is perfect for a major commercial development, like a supermarket or something even bigger, according to Justina Lombardo, a spokesperson for Massey Knakal Realty Services, which handled the sale of the building.   [more]

Screenshot of Bruce Ratner The foundation of the first residential tower at Atlantic Yards is being laid down and in May, the 32-story building will rise above the ground, Bruce Ratner, CEO of Forest City Ratner, which is developing the massive Brooklyn project, told Bloomberg News (see the video after the jump). The property is slated for completion about a year from this June, he said. The building, dubbed B2, broke ground in December and is slated to be the world’s tallest modular tower. “We wanted to come up with a method that assured the same kind of pricing and also was less expensive to build, but still as good or higher quality,” Ratner told Bloomberg of the modular construction method…. [more]

40 Willow Street in Brooklyn Heights

Brooklyn’s most valuable home – the single-family residence with the highest tax assessment in the borough – has found a buyer for the second time in less than a year, Curbed reported. [more]

Barclays Center

Mayor Michael Bloomberg highlighted the 2,000 jobs created by the Barclays Center in his State of the City speech yesterday, but the bulk of these positions are part-time and without benefits, DNAinfo reported. In fact, only 100 are full-time. However, most Barclays Center employees are union members of SEIU 32BJ, according to Forest City Ratner spokesperson Ashley Cotton. “There are no health benefits because they’re part-time employees,” Cotton told DNAinfo. “However, we feel, and hopefully they do too, that there’s a benefit to being part of a union.” [more]

Downtown Brooklyn

The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership is hoping to spruce up properties along the Eastern Gateway, a six-block area on Flatbush Avenue between Lafayette and DeKalb avenues, Brownstoner reported. In an effort to convert upper-floor vacant space for commercial use, the partnership, a non-profit coalition of three Brooklyn business improvement districts, is offering up dollar-to-dollar matching grants of up to $25,000 for renovations. [more]