Developers making big outer-borough bets in 2014

Some of the city’s biggest real estate players are looking past Manhattan for development opportunities and are upping their investments in boroughs such as Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx.

Taconic Investment Partners, for example, has earmarked $70 million out of a $220 million investment fund for Brooklyn and Queens projects. Washington, D.C.-based Madison Marquette is looking to do $400 million worth of New York City deals outside Manhattan in 2014. And Scott Rechler’s RXR Realty plans to spend $1 billion on properties in the Bronx, Long Island City and Staten Island.

“We’re happy to go to the fringe because we think a lot of these areas are only a year or two away from becoming prime,” Kevin Davis, Taconic’s chief investment officer, told Crain’s. “The Meatpacking District used to be the edge where no one wanted to go, and it’s the same thing in areas now like Crown Heights.”

Real estate investor Billy Macklowe told Crain’s that his next deal would be in Brooklyn, adding that “the boroughs have been terrific.”

About $5 billion in sales transactions were completed in Brooklyn last year, a year-over-year increase of 16 percent, according to data from brokerage TerraCRG. The brokerage’s CEO Ofer Cohen told the magazine that he expected a 20 percent jump to $6 billion in 2014. [Crain’s]  – Hiten Samtani