From left: Geoffrey Bailey, director of TerraCRG, Triangle Sports, Timothy King, managing director of CPEX, and a rendering of the Barclays Center

National retailers and restaurateurs have been scrupulously scouting for real estate locations near and along Flatbush and Atlantic avenues in advance of the Barclays Center opening this year.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the most recent victim of the growing trend is Triangle Sports, the 96-year-old retailer at the intersection of Flatbush and Fifth avenues. With the weak economy and increased pressure from the national retailers and upscale boutiques that have descended upon the area, Triangle Sports owners felt it would be best to sell their property. [more]

Brooklyn commercial property sales in 2011 (source: TerraCRG)

In Brookyln, sales of commercial properties showed significant recovery in 2011, according to a report by commercial real estate brokerage firm TerraCRG.

A total of 1,052 commercial sales closed for over $1.8 billion, an 86 percent increase in dollar volume from 2010, and a 35 percent increase in total number of sales. About 70 percent of the dollar volume increase came from institutional activity, the report shows. [more]

TerraCRG President Ofer Cohen and 341 Eastern Parkway

TerraCRG is marketing a Crown Heights development site that’s already approved for an eight-story, 77,000-square-foot residential structure, Crain’s reported.

The vacant lot, at 341 Eastern Parkway at Franklin Avenue, measures 14,000 square feet and is three blocks from the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. The site was purchased by a company called A.J.J.M.D. Realty Corp in 1994, public records show.

TerraCRG President Ofer Cohen said the owners maintained active building permits so that it would be ready to sell. [more]

The Brooklyn market continued to show strength in 2010, with 778 commercial sales totaling over $1 billion, according to commercial brokerage TerraCRG’s year-end report. “This volume represents no significant change from 2009′s trading levels in the borough,” said Ofer Cohen, founder and president of TerraCRG. “After two years of volume decline, that’s good news and shows that the market is finally stabilizing.” Sales of multi-family buildings represented almost half of the dollar volume in 2010, the report shows. The highest number of transactions took place in the Williamsburg/Greenpoint areas and the Bed-Stuy/Bushwick/Crown Heights sections. TRD [more]

A 14,000-square foot residential development site at 268-270 St. Marks Avenue in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, was sold today for $1.23 million by commercial brokerage TerraCRG, for more than $85 per square foot. The property, off of Vanderbilt Avenue, is comprised of two tax lots, with zoning which allows for over 14,000 buildable square feet. According to Melissa DiBella, vice president at TerraCRG, there was a bidding war between interested buyers. TRD
[more]

The owner of a 2,000-seat movie theater-turned-drugstore at 723 Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint has put the historic building up for sale, and the Brooklyn Paper reports that the listing broker is hoping for a buyer that will return the site to its former glory. While it was in operation, the Fox Meserole theater debuted with silent films and later showed “The Pink Panther” and “2001: A Space Odyssey” before being converted to a roller disco in the 1970s. But any developer looking to bring feature films to the neighborhood once again will first have to clear out the current tenant. [more]

1199 Atlantic Avenue

A 24,000-square-foot industrial loft building at 1199 Atlantic Avenue, just blocks away from the new Barclays Center sports arena, is back on the market at $72 per square foot, nearly half its original price. The property, marketed by commercial real estate firm TerraCRG, had been on the market in contract in mid 2008 for $3.3 million but the sale was never completed after developers couldn’t obtain construction financing. The four-story loft building is currently vacant. Allowable uses include hotel, retail, offices, and as-is industrial and the site has approved plans from Howard Johnson for a 44-unit hotel. “With the construction of the Nets Arena underway, the location on Atlantic Avenue is becoming more strategic as an economy hotel site,” said Ofer Cohen, founder and president of TerraCRG. “Unfortunately, the lingering recession and the tough economic climate prevented this development from moving forward in the previous round.” TRD

[more]

Boutique commercial brokerage TerraCRG has moved its operations to a new office at 592 Pacific Street in Downtown Brooklyn. Meanwhile, move-ins have begun at the Crystal Point development in Jersey City, and the Alliance for Downtown New York is installing five new public art works at Lower Manhattan construction sites. Click here for more. [more]

A slew of discounted Brooklyn brownstones is coming on the market. A bevy of three- to four-unit residential buildings in Bedford-Stuyvesant can be had for under $300,000, for example, according to Ofer Cohen, the managing director at TerraCrg Commercial Realty Group (see full report after the jump). “I’ve got a list of 10 of them right now,” he said. But investors looking for a steal in prime neighborhoods like Carroll Gardens or Park Slope may need to wait a little longer. According to a report released today by TerraCRG, 51 percent of non-residential mortgages that began foreclosure filings in the past year in Brooklyn were for three- to four-unit residential buildings, and 80 percent were for mortgages under $1 million. Cohen added that the majority of the foreclosures took place in lower-priced neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy and East New York. “The weaker neighborhoods are seeing more of this,” said Cohen, who recently sold a non-performing mortgage note on an eight-family building in Crown Heights for $400,000, a 50 percent discount. [more]

From the October issue: New York City is at a peculiar crossroads. For months, investors have
marshaled unprecedented amounts of capital, salivating at the prospect
of snapping up distressed properties. “We’re fortunate this cycle to
have the most dry powder in our
history,” Blackstone Group president Tony James said last month at the
Barclays Capital Global Financial Services Conference, which was held
in Manhattan. The firm has about $28 billion in unspent capital, he
said. About $12 billion of that is earmarked for real estate. “We’re
just beginning what will be the best period in decades for private
investing,” he said. Dan Fasulo, a managing director at Real Capital
Analytics, estimated
that $50 billion has been raised and is ready to be deployed into
distressed real estate. Paradoxically, investors have found very little
worth buying so far, in large part because banks continue to hold
troubled loans on their books, hoping conditions will improve. [more]