Acuity, partners pick up W’burg office building for $30M

UPDATED, Feb. 13, 6:00 p.m.: A partnership led by Acuity Capital Partners bought a six-story office building in Williamsburg for $30 million, or $526 per square foot, the firm said Monday.

The building at 185 Marcy Avenue spans 70,000 square feet. The YMCA built it in 1905 as rooming house. The seller is a trust controlled by the Gutman family, which had owned it for at least two decades, according to sources and records.

The new owners are planning a repositioning of the property, located between South 9th Street and Division Avenue.

Acuity Capital,  a Midtown-based real estate investment firm led by Elliot Neumann, paid $20.8 million for a six-story Washington Heights rental building in December.

The firm is also planning to build a 62-unit condominium building at 42 West 18th Street in Chelsea. The site is only zoned to allow 40 units, and Acuity pushed to avoid including affordable housing in the development — even offering to donate part of the profits to build affordable housing somewhere else in the city.  In August, the City Planning Commission ruled Mandatory Inclusionary Housing did not apply to the project. The following month, Council member Corey Johnson recommended the application be approved by the Council.