Louis Greco’s plan to stack condos on top of 285 Schermerhorn finally moves forward

The developer received a $53M construction loan; work is due to begin within the month

285 Schermerhorn Street in Brooklyn (Credit: Google Maps)
285 Schermerhorn Street in Brooklyn (Credit: Google Maps)

Louis Greco’s Second Development Services (SDS) is finally getting to work on a condominium conversion of Brooklyn Community Services’s (BCS) headquarters at 285 Schermerhorn Street in Downtown Brooklyn.

SDS and an undisclosed private investor landed a three-year construction loan of $53.25 million from hard money lender G4 Capital, in a deal that closed Monday, according to G4 partner Jason Behfarin. The transaction included a “cash-flowing multifamily building” on 33rd Street in Manhattan as collateral and Ares Capital provided a $23.3 million mezzanine loan.

G4 partner Robyn Sorid said the interest rate on the loan was “in line with our financing program for an asset of this character and credit quality,” which is roughly “550 over to 750 over” LIBOR. The New York-based lender also provided SDS and the investor with a $26.3 million acquisition loan for the property about a year ago, said Behfarin.

SDS’s plans to add residential component to BCS’s existing seven-story office was first proposed in 2015. At the time, the Wall Street Journal reported that ownership of a 17,000-square-foot office condo was to be retained by the nonprofit, while SDS would own the 100-unit residential addition.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

According to plans approved by the city’s Department of Buildings, the 14-story mixed-used new building at 285 Schermerhorn would total about 92,500 square feet with 79,000 square feet allocated for residential use and about 14,000 for commercial. Behfarin expects construction to begin within the “next 30 days.”

Neither BCS or SDS would comment on the residential condo conversion plans, which do not appear to have been filed yet with the New York Attorney General’s office.

Jonathan Aghravi, the former managing director of Eastern Consolidated’s capital advisory division, and his four-person team brokered the deal between G4 and the developer. Aghravi and his team have been operating independently since the commercial brokerage closed in July.