A&E makes another big multifamily play with LeFrak buy

Doug Eisenberg’s firm under contract to buy South BK portfolio for $250M

A&E Real Estate's Doug Eisenberg (AE, Google Maps)
A&E Real Estate's Doug Eisenberg (AE, Google Maps)

Douglas Eisenberg’s A&E Real Estate added another stop on its tear through New York CIty’s multifamily market.

A&E is under contract to buy a multifamily portfolio in South Brooklyn from the LeFrak Organization for approximately $250 million, people familiar told the Commercial Observer. The deal is for 14 properties containing 1,217 units in Gravesend and Sheepshead Bay, all within a 10-minute drive of one another.

Nine of the buildings with 841 units are in Sheepshead Bay, while the remaining units are in Gravesend. The portfolio is 93 percent rent stabilized, according to the Observer. LeFrak has owned all of the buildings since they were constructed around 60 years ago, recently investing $18 million into property upgrades.

The biggest assets in the deal are the Hollywood and Bel Air buildings at 2750 Homecrest Avenue and 2775 East 12th Street, respectively. Each of those buildings contain 189 units.

The transaction is the latest big multifamily move by Eisenberg’s firm, following one reported only last week.

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The firm purchased the 354-unit building at 140 Riverside Boulevard from Sam Zell’s Equity Residential for $266 million. The Upper West Side building was built in 2013 and was previously known as Trump Place before ditching the name upon Donald Trump’s election in 2016.

In February, A&E completed the largest multifamily deal in Queens since the onset of the pandemic, paying $130 million for the 22-building Cunningham Heights complex in Queens Village. The development, which has more than 1,000 units and is 99 percent occupied, was sold by Benjamin Companies.

A&E last year brought in Tennessee’s state pension fund to close on a $133.5 million purchase of a Sutton Place apartment building. The joint venture purchased the 263-unit building at 400 East 57th Street from SL Green.

[CO] — Holden Walter-Warner