Kushner, LIVWRK grab big Gowanus development site

Deal could give rise to 1 million-square-foot residential and retail project

From left: Jared Kushner, 175-225 Third Street (Credit: PropertyShark) and Asher Abehsera
From left: Jared Kushner, 175-225 Third Street (Credit: PropertyShark) and Asher Abehsera

Jared Kushner’s Kushner Companies and LIVWRK are in contract to buy a block-long development site in Gowanus for between $70 million and $80 million, The Real Deal has learned.

The site, located at 175-225 Third Street, currently allows for a commercial mixed-use project of up to 300,000 square feet, but could eventually be rezoned for a residential mixed-use project of more than a million square feet, according to a source familiar with the off-market deal.

The three-acre parcel offers about 600 feet of frontage and will allow for about 150,000 square feet of retail, according to the source. The Property Is Located Across The Street from the recently opened Whole Foods Market, and is close to the Lightstone Group’s 700-unit rental development at 363 Bond Street. The seller, listed in property records as 175 Third Street Associates, is a family that owned the property for more than 60 years, the source said.

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Representatives for Kushner and LIVWRK, headed by former Two Trees Management executive Asher Abehsera, declined to comment. Peter Ripka of Ripco Real Estate, a retail broker active in the area, said that “in the shopping center world, having Whole Foods as an anchor is like going to the ball with one of the belles.”

In July, the partnership teamed up with Aby Rosen’s RFR Realty and Invesco Real Estate on a $375 million purchase of a 1.2 million-square-foot portfolio in Dumbo from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. That deal, Brooklyn’s largest of 2013, will give rise to Dumbo Heights, an office campus geared towards Brooklyn’s emerging technology, advertising and media sector. Etsy, the online marketplace for handmade and vintage goods, recently agreed to take 200,000 square feet at the complex, where asking rents start at just shy of $60 per square foot.