UPDATED: March 1, 10:35 a.m.: Bridgewater Capital Partners and investor Goldie Riesman closed on the purchase of a mammoth Staten Island development site, with plans to build a multi-building, mixed-use complex.
The Midtown-based development firm picked a 38.8-acre site on the island’s south shore, at 1 Nassau Place, paying $30 million to telecommunications giant Alcatel-Lucent in an off-market, all-cash transaction, according to property records and sources familiar with the deal, which closed Dec. 30, 2015.
The land, currently vacant, is zoned for industrial, office and retail use and offers 3.5 million buildable square feet. Part of the massive site is unusable wetlands.
Bridgewater aims to rezone the site to allow for a senior assisted living and residential development that the firm would build alone. The company also hopes to recruit a partner to develop a residential complex there, and is in talks to that effect with multiple “major Manhattan real estate investment trusts,” sources said.
In addition, the firm plans to build a big-box retail location at the site, to encompass about 220,000 square feet, sources said.
The company is in talks with Kimco Realty – a New Hyde Park-based REIT that focuses on open-air shopping centers – to co-develop the retail at the site.
Bridgewater CEO Mark Yunger told The Real Deal the purchase was fueled by his confidence in the Staten Island market.
“It’s a market I believe that hasn’t been fully taken advantage of,” he said. “It’s ripe and ready to be the next Brooklyn. It’s a just question of getting the right prices, so you can get the right returns. Brooklyn and Long Island City have reached their peaks.”
Bridgewater – along with joint venture partner Quadrum Global – paid $45.5 million for a 179,00-square-foot development site at 161 West Street in Greenpoint in August 2014.
Correction: A previous version of this article didn’t include Goldie Riesman’s role as an investor in the property.