Normandy, Princeton sell Bushwick warehouse to Steel Equities for $53M

Developers had previously planed to convert the space into offices

Finn Wentworth of Normandy Real Estate Partners and 333 Johnson Avenue
Finn Wentworth of Normandy Real Estate Partners and 333 Johnson Avenue

Steel Equities – the Long Island-based investor that focuses on industrial and warehouse projects – picked up a Bushwick property for $53 million.

The Bethpage-based company bought the 161,000-square-foot warehouse at 333 Johnson Avenue from Normandy Real Estate Partners, Princeton Holdings and Royalton Capital, sources told The Real Deal.

Steel Equities, owned by Joseph and Glenn Lostritto will be looking for a new tenant for the property, which is vacant. Normandy and its partners in late 2017 signed a 100,000-square-foot lease for the United States Postal Service, which used it to make last-mile deliveries through the holiday season.

Representatives for Steel Equities and the sellers could not be immediately reached for comment. Pinnacle Realty’s David Junik and Decio Baio represented both sides in the transaction. The brokers declined to comment.

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David Junik

Normandy and its partners bought the property for $26.8 million in 2015, with plans to convert it into office space. Brooklyn’s office market, however, started to cool off. And the impending L Train shutdown hasn’t helped matters. Normandy and its investment partners had put the property up for sale in 2016 with an asking price of $60 million.

In the meantime, logistics and warehouse space has come in high demand from companies looking to make deliveries for online purchases. UPS just paid $303 million to buy the huge Red Hook site where last year it signed a ground lease.

Steel Equities, meanwhile, continues its push into the logistics space. In Bethpage, the company wants to spend $51 million to build a warehouse for FedEx.