Co-op owners unite to sell Brooklyn Heights building

The co-op board for a seven-story Brooklyn Heights building developed by Francis Greenburger’s Time Equities is putting the property on the market for $30 million, The Real Deal has learned.

The 20-unit, 20,000-square-foot property at 159-161 Remsen Street, between Clinton and Court streets, has not changed hands since it was converted in 1982. The project marked the first time that Time Equities had converted a vacant commercial building into a residential co-op.

Matthew Rosenzweig, who handles Brooklyn investment sales at Marcus & Millichap, is marketing the building as a possible development site for condominiums. A developer would have to demolish the existing structure to take full advantage of the 45,000 buildable square feet and 185-foot height limit.

The act of co-op board members banding together to sell the building is far from a regular occurrence. Last year, the co-op owners of 303 East 37th Street in Murray Hill and 61-63 Crosby Street in Soho put their buildings on sale, with Massey Knakal Realty Services (now Cushman & Wakefield) and Eastern Consolidated as the respective brokers, as previously reported.

“It is a highly unusual set of circumstances for co-op owners in a building to want to release their occupancy and move on,” Rosenzweig told TRD.

There is currently a discount clothing store and a vacant former home of Kaffe Deli Market Place on the ground floor.