Thor Equities may be marketing a good chunk of its New York City portfolio, but the Joseph Sitt-led firm is still planning a 623,000-square-foot office and retail development on the Red Hook waterfront.
The four-story, Norman Foster-designed complex will feature more than 600,000 square feet of office space and around 23,000 square feet of retail and restaurants, according to Bloomberg.
The project will also come with a waterfront esplanade that will be open to the public, as well as a courtyard and rooftop terraces for tenants, per plans filed with the city’s Department of Buildings.
Like Dock72 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard – the 675,000-square-foot waterfront office development that is being built by Rudin Management, Boston Properties and WeWork – the complex will be surrounded by water on three sides and will target the increased demand for Brooklyn workspace from tech and creative office tenants.
While Thor’s Red Hook development will face public transportation challenges – the closest subway stop is 12 blocks away – it could benefit from long-term plans for a light rail connection that would run from Sunset Park up to Long Island City in Queens.
Work on the complex, which will feature 100,000-square-foot open floorplates, will start this summer with or without any signed tenants, a Thor spokesperson told Bloomberg.
It may not be the only Red Hook office complex to come online over the next several years. Italian firm Est4te Four has plans for a 1.1 million-square-foot development of its own, named Red Hook Innovation Studios and also located on the neighborhood’s waterfront. Est4te Four is reportedly looking for a partner to take a $100 million stake in that project.
The Real Deal reported exclusively yesterday that Thor is marketing at least 10 Manhattan properties. [Bloomberg] – Rey Mashayekhi