Kushner, Rosen to buy Watchtower building, Jay Street site for $700M: report

Group bought five Dumbo properties from Witnesses in 2013 for $375M

25-30 Columbia Heights in Downtown Brooklyn (inset from left: Jared Kushner and Aby Rosen)
25-30 Columbia Heights in Downtown Brooklyn (inset from left: Jared Kushner and Aby Rosen)

A group of investors led by Jared Kushner and Aby Rosen are reportedly set to lay out $700 million for two of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ coveted Brooklyn properties.

Kushner Companies, RFR Realty and LIVWRK are in advanced talks to buy the group’s 733,000-square-foot headquarters at 25-30 Columbia Heights in Downtown Brooklyn, known as the Watchtower, and a 135,000-square-foot right site at 85 Jay Street in Dumbo with 1.1 million square feet of as-of development rights, the New York Post reported.

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The same joint venture bought a five-building, 1.2 million-square-foot Dumbo portfolio from the Witnesses in 2013, paying $373 million.

The Witnesses are leaving Brooklyn after a century in the borough, with plans to set up a new headquarters in Warwick, NY.

The group is also shopping a seven-story apartment building at 124 Columbia Heights. Cushman & Wakefield’s Bob Knakal is marketing the properties on the Witnesses’ behalf. [NYP]Ariel Stulberg