From left: A rendering of the Domino project (credit: SHoP) and Jed Walentas
Two Trees Management’s Jed Walentas is temporarily turning over the Domino Sugar development site in Williamsburg for use as an urban farm, yoga studio, reading room and bicycle course, the Brooklyn Paper reported. The developer will not charge rent for the football field-sized plot, but the operators will need to pay utilities. [more]
From left: Jed Walentas of Two Trees and the Domino Sugar plant
Jed Walentas of Two Trees, which last week signed a $185 million contract to buy the Domino Sugar Factory plant in Williamsburg, told the New York Observer that there may not be affordable housing at the waterfront development.
“I know there is a lot of interest in affordable housing in the community,” Walentas told the Observer. “If we can reach a broad level of support for more, and it is buildable, that is something we would consider.” [more]
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn gave the keynote address at the Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable’s fifth anniversary luncheon today, but Jed Walentas, vice president at Two Trees, stole the show.
The casually dressed 30-something, son of pioneering Dumbo developer David Walentas, entertained the crowd of some 100 real estate professionals with updates on Two Trees’ projects, punctuated with candid one- liners that drew laughs from the audience.
For example, Walentas said he decided to undertake Two Trees’ new Williamsburg hotel project “to have a new experience and do something fun.”
He added: “To be honest, I have no idea how the economics are going to work out.”
… [more]
Though the price disparity in their residential markets may be narrowing,
Brooklyn still lags far behind Manhattan in the number of big national
retailers. That was a major discussion point at the 2011 Brooklyn Real
Estate Summit held yesterday at St. Francis College in Downtown
Brooklyn. Not coincidentally, commercial real estate veterans pointed
to the very neighborhood where the conference took place, Downtown
Brooklyn, as crucial to landing those retailers.
“Brooklyn is too spread out to achieve national retailers in every business
district in the borough,” said Michael Phillips, managing director at
real estate investor Jamestown, which has stakes in Be@Schermerhorn in Downtown Brooklyn and four Manhattan buildings. But, by trumpeting Downtown Brooklyn, where retail traffic is already evident, Brooklyn
can lure the big-box national retailer willing to be a pioneer…. [more]
Brooklyn-based real estate development firm Two-Trees Management has provided a 6,440-square-foot space at a highly subsidized rate for a new city-sponsored business incubator to support the development of technology start-ups in Dumbo, the city said today. The incubator, located at 20 Jay Street — one block from Brooklyn Bridge Park — is designed to accommodate technology entrepreneurs in New York City over the next three years.
Seth Pinsky, president of New York City Economic Development Corp., announced the plan this morning during an Internet Week NY panel on the city’s “Digital Corridors.” EDC has provided a $250,000 grant for the incubator as part of a major Bloomberg administration effort to encourage entrepreneurship. TRD… [more]
For months, brokers have been describing the Manhattan luxury rental market as white-hot, and here’s further evidence: the 222-unit first phase of Two Trees Management’s new Mercedes House, which hit the market less than three weeks ago, is already 50 percent spoken for.
The 29-story building at 555 West 53rd Street, named after the 330,000-square-foot Mercedes-Benz showroom at its base, was designed by starchitect Enrique Norten and is priced from $2,200 per month.
Among the draws: floor-to-ceiling windows, views of the Hudson River, on-site parking and amenity menu that includes a health club, boxing ring, golf simulator, basketball and volleyball courts and both indoor and outdoor swimming pools. TRD… [more]
Two Trees Management has signed a deal with the city’s School Construction Authority to build a 300-seat middle school within its planned Dock Street residential tower, moving ahead a project that’s drawn criticism from the likes of actress Helen Hunt, historian David McCullough and director Ken Burns. According to the Brooklyn Paper, Two Trees, which is run by father-and-son development team David and Jed Walentas, has agreed to pony up the construction costs for the middle school. The facility will be on the Dock Street side of their future 17-story building and is slated for completion in time for the 2014 school year. … [more]
The group suing to block the planned transfer of Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Tobacco Warehouse to a private theater troupe are armed with a set of e-mails that reveal close ties between the theater group, Dumbo’s Walentas family and park president Regina Myer, according to the Daily News. In one exchange, Susan Feldman, artistic director of St. Ann’s Warehouse, which was ultimately picked to head a $15 million redevelopment project at the vacant site, apparently wrote to Myer: “I always come out of our meetings feeling a kinship with you and what you are trying to do in the park. I hope we can be a part of it.” She added: “I’m leaving two tickets for you tonight.”… [more]
Dumbo developer Jed Walentas ran into some hot water this morning when the Brooklyn Paper published a year-old e-mail exchange in which his language sounds somewhat less than politically correct. “The opposition is clearly panicked and turned out 75 or so folks,” he wrote to Brooklyn Bridge Park President Regina Myer, recapping a public hearing on his controversial Dock Street project, set to include residences and a public middle school. Fort Greene Council member Tish James and Marty Markowitz “agreed to not turn out dozens from the projects and make it a total racial mess… I got very good vibes from Marty and his staff,” he added…. [more]
In a sign that the credit markets are loosening, two developers have secured $135 million of state-backed construction loans, Crain’s reported. Two Trees Management has closed on a $77 million loan to finance its Clinton Park residential and commercial project at 770 Eleventh Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen, the Brooklyn-based company’s first development in Manhattan, and its largest, at 1.2 million square feet. Landlords Savanna and Monday Properties closed a $58 million loan from private investor PCCP to fund a renovation at 386 Park Avenue South, a 20-story art deco office building in Midtown South…. [more]
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