South Brooklyn mixed-use shopping portfolio trades for $165M

Another large mixed-use shopping center in southern Brooklyn has traded hands.

A partnership between Infinity Real Estate and Nightingale Properties sold the T.J. Maxx and Target-anchored retail-and-office Kingswood Portfolio in Midwood for $165 million, the sellers told The Real Deal.

The buyer is real estate investment trust Urban Edge Properties, which focuses on shopping centers.

Infinity managing partner Steven Kassin told TRD that Urban Edge made an unsolicited offer to buy the 340,000-square-foot portfolio in an off-market deal.

“Urban Edge is very aggressive right now,” he said. “We thought it was the right place and the right time.”

The portfolio consists of two separate centers: the 230,000-square-foot Kingswood Center at 1630 East 15th Street (which is home to T.J. Maxx, New York Sports Club and the Visiting Nurse Service) and the 110,000-square-foot Kingswood Crossing about three blocks away at 1715 East 13th Street, where tenants include Target and Marshalls.

Midtown-based Infinity, which Kassin founded in 2005, teamed up with Elie Schwartz and Simon Singer’s Nightingale in 2014 to buy the Midwood Properties for $89 million.

At the time, the Kingswood Center was in need of a renovation and what is now Kingswood Crossing was just a parking lot.

Kassin said it was rare to find such large sites in Midwood, which forces large-scale retailers onto side streets in residential areas of the neighborhood, away from the Kings Highway thoroughfare and the B/Q subway station.

“It’s a strange place for them to land,” he said. “There was no real retail cluster.”

The Infinity-Nightingale partnership renovated the Kingswood Center property and developed Kingswood Crossing, which includes about 45,000 square feet of office space. Kassin said the sellers had lined up some medical-services and educational tenants to lease the space, which he expects Urban Edge will finalize shortly.

Urban Edge announced the acquisition Tuesday evening as it reported earnings for the fourth quarter. The company said it bought the properties through a 1031 exchange for the recent sale of non-core properties.

But Urban Edge isn’t the only big name buying up retail in South Brooklyn.

The Blackstone Group in December paid $130 million to buy the BJ’s Wholesale Club-anchored Canarsie Plaza from CIM Group.

And in November, Federal Realty Investment Trust bought the 147,000-square-foot Georgetowne Shopping Center for $85 million.

Contact Rich Bockmann at rb@therealdeal.com or 212-673-5081.