Brookfield eyes $400M for massive Harlem rental

Brookfield is looking to sell the last piece of its once-sprawling Putnam portfolio of multifamily buildings for more than $400 million.

The asset manager’s Brookfield Property Partners has put the nearly 2,000-unit complex at 3333 Broadway up for sale, sources told The Real Deal.

The 1970s-era West Harlem development, which is made up of five connected towers, is near Columbia University’s expanded Morningside Heights campus.

“Manhattanites, especially those looking for easy access to Columbia University, City College and nearby New York Presbyterian Hospital, have long recognized the property’s unparalleled location,” read marketing materials from Cushman & Wakefield, where a team led by Adam Spies and Doug Harmon is handling the sales process.

A little more than half of the property’s 1,193 units are free-market with the rest mostly under the federal Section 8 housing voucher program, according to the property’s brochure.

A representative for Brookfield Property, headed by Brian Kingston, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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The massive property is part of the former 4,000-unit Putnam portfolio — once one of the largest collections of rental buildings in the city — that Brookfield purchased for $1 billion in 2014. The asset manager sold five of those buildings  to L+M Development Partners and Invesco for $1.5 billion in 2019 but held onto 3333 Broadway.

Property records show that Brookfield amended the property’s ground lease with the city in August, and according to the marketing materials the deal added 565 affordable units for renters earning 70 percent to 110 percent of the area median income.

Demand for apartment buildings reached near-record levels at the beginning of the year as investors looked to take advantage of rents that surged as residents returned to the city and the 421-a program neared its end, portending a drop in multifamily construction.

Rent growth has plateaued and deals have become harder to close as interest rates climbed, but interest in rentals remains strong, especially as the market for office buildings has all but ground to a halt and there is no hint of 421a returning.

Josh Gotlib’s Black Spruce Management and Meyer Orbach’s Orbach Affordable recently closed on the $388 million purchase of the 408-unit rental component at 685 First Avenue — part of a $1.75 billion portfolio of 1,766 units they are acquiring from Stefan Soloviev’s Solow Realty & Development Company.