A pair of real estate investment firms have picked up an array of outer-borough apartment buildings — another indication of strong interest in New York City’s multifamily market despite a rise in borrowing costs.
Ross Banon’s Corner Street Capital and Drew Popkin’s Highpoint Property Group acquired the 17-building multifamily portfolio in Brooklyn and Queens from developer Joel Schwartz for $167 million, The Real Deal has learned.
The 180-unit portfolio spans 173,000 square feet across Williamsburg, Bushwick, Cobble Hill, and Ridgewood. It consists of a mix of renovated pre-war structures and ground-up constructed properties that were developed by Schwartz.
JLL’s Brendan Maddigan and Ethan Stanton brokered the transaction.
The bulk of the portfolio — 12 buildings — is in Williamsburg. Among them are 99 North 4th Street, 540 Driggs Avenue, 183 Ainslie Street, 209 Montrose Avenue, 41 Skillman Avenue, and 725 Metropolitan Avenue.
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The largest single transaction of the bunch to hit city records was in Bushwick, where Corner Street and Highpoint acquired 58 Palmetto Street for $15.6 million. The tandem also purchased 175-177 Palmetto Street for $11.6 million as part of the deal.
Neither Corner Street nor Highpoint had commented by press time.
Banon founded Corner Street in 2020 after stints at Related Companies, Shvo and Chazen Capital Partners, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Highpoint has been collecting small multifamily buildings in Brooklyn since 2017. The firm recently put a 20-building, 146-unit portfolio in Chelsea, the East Village, Cobble Hill and Brooklyn Heights up for sale with an asking price of about $300 million.
Schwartz entered the real estate business in the early 2000s and rode the wave that transformed Williamsburg and surrounding neighborhoods in the ensuing decade.
He raised $85 million in bonds after taking his Brooklyn multifamily holdings public on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in 2017. The 37-building, 304-unit portfolio, based in Williamsburg, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick, was valued at $326 million at the time.