From left: Steve Kliegerman, president of Halstead Development
Marketing, theToren and Juliana Brown, senior managing director at
Corcoran

BFC Partners Partners has hired the Corcoran Group as the new exclusive sales and marketing agent for the Toren at 150 Myrtle Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, replacing Halstead Property Development Marketing, BFC announced today. Corcoran took over marketing the project today.
The 240-unit, 37-story condominium is 79 percent sold, with approximately 20 percent of the total sales taking place in 2011, according to BFC. The developer hopes to see the building sell out by the end of the year.
“Developers make these decisions for various reasons,” said Juliana Brown, senior managing director at Corcoran’s Fort Greene office. “Halstead’s been on it for a number of years and [the developers] felt they wanted a fresher face.”
Sales will be headed up by Corcoran sales agents Marco Auteri and Alexander Capoccia. [more]

Fred Harris, vice president at AvalonBay Communities, which is constructing its first Brooklyn project, a 631-unit tower on Gold Street in Fort Greene.

From the March issue: A handful of major real estate management and development firms that have long avoided Brooklyn — even as housing prices in the borough shot up and brokerages rushed in — are finally venturing across the river.

The reasons are twofold. First, new high-rise, high-end construction in Brooklyn fits their business model. And second, values of these new Brooklyn buildings appear to have tumbled further and faster than their Manhattan counterparts, according to brokers and developers. “Developers are looking for opportunities, 100 percent,” said David Maundrell, a Dumbo resident and the president of aptsandlofts.com, a brokerage with a Brooklyn focus. “But they are willing to do that because there is a viable market here. It’s become a destination as opposed to an afterthought for Manhattanites who want a cheaper place.”

Jamestown Properties is one of the developers that recently upped its bet on the borough. In early 2007, the firm had a 60 percent equity stake in be@Schermerhorn, a troubled condo in Downtown Brooklyn, which was developed by SDS Procida and saw construction and sales suspended last year. But in December, Jamestown bought the balance of the mortgage from a consortium of banks. The consortium had originally lent $100 million to SDS Procida.