The Corcoran Group will soon open its first Williamsburg office, a 4,100-square-foot Shop On Bedford Avenue.
Twenty-nine real estate agents from Corcoran and 13 from other brokerage firms will open Tuesday at 241 Bedford Avenue, between North Third and North Fourth streets, said Eric McFarland, the soon-to-be managing director of the Williamsburg office. The office has room for another 12 agents.
Corcoran acquired two street-level retail spaces – one was vacant and the other was an Internet café – last fall and has been renovating the site since.
“We inherited four walls and a ceiling essentially,” McFarland said. “We put in the entire infrastructure.”
Corcoran has already established itself in Brooklyn with two offices in Brooklyn Heights and one each in Fort Greene and Park Slope. McFarland has been the senior managing director of about 80 agents in the two Brooklyn Heights offices.
While the brokerage already handles listings in Williamsburg, it has sought to establish an office in the neighborhood for about a year and a half, McFarland said. Finding a space that was big enough, had retail frontage and was in a prime location — the Bedford office is two-and-a-half blocks from the L — took a long time, he said.
Competitors in the neighborhood include Prudential Douglas Elliman and Williamsburg-based Apartments and Lofts, along with small, local shops.
Halstead, another Manhattan-based brokerage, has three Brooklyn offices, but none in Williamsburg. Its sister company, Brown Harris Stevens, is expanding its offices in Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope.
“We’re looking to set ourselves as the premier real estate company in that neighborhood,” covering new development, resales and rentals, McFarland said.
New development projects that Corcoran is marketing in Williamsburg include 100 N3, the Metropolitan and 180 Woodpoint. Agents marketing the projects will be based in the new Williamsburg office.