Brunner, Mandel to pay nearly $700 psf for Williamsburg parcel

Deal for Wythe Avenue properties could be among area’s priciest

Gabriel Saffiotti and Nicole Rabinowitsch (inset) And 296 Wythe Avenue (Credit: Google)
Gabriel Saffiotti and Nicole Rabinowitsch (inset) And 296 Wythe Avenue (Credit: Google)

Brooklyn investors Joseph Brunner and Abe Mandel are in contract to buy a Williamsburg development site on Wythe Avenue for nearly $700 per buildable square foot, The Real Deal has learned. The deal is set to be one of the priciest-ever development parcel transactions in the neighborhood.

The properties, located at 296 Wythe Avenue and 300-306 Wythe Avenue between North 1st and Grand streets, offer just shy of 40,000 buildable square feet and are zoned for both commercial and residential use. Brunner and Mandel, who are paying about $27 million, plan to put up a residential building with retail at the base, sources familiar with the deal said.

The seller is Tri-Boro Shelving & Partition Corp., controlled by the Demaio family, which has owned the properties since the late 1960s. Eastern Consolidated’s Gabriel Saffiotti and Nicole Rabinowitsch brokered the deal. None of the parties could be reached for comment.

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Brunner is among a band of Brooklyn-based investors that have substantial holdings within the borough, but manage to keep quite a low profile outside that community.

In 2012, he inked a contract to buy a large development site at 49 Dupont Street in Greenpoint for $23.3 million, which he sold in 2014 for nearly $49 million. Brunner also owns several other buildings, including a rental at 619 Hancock Street in Stuyvesant Heights and an industrial building at 390 Liberty Avenue in East New York. He also reportedly bought a landmark Upper West Side church at 361 Central Park West for $42 million from developer Ira Shapiro, as TRD reported.

Last year, Alliance Private Capital Group bought a development site at 510 Driggs Avenue in the neighborhood for $35 million, or about $500 per buildable square foot.