Ben Simmons has yet to play a game for the Brooklyn Nets, but he’s clearly a believer in his future with the team.
The troubled Australian superstar is in contract to buy a combined unit at Fortis Property Group’s Olympia Dumbo in the Brooklyn neighborhood, the New York Post reported. The purchase price won’t be known until Simmons closes, but Fortis was asking $13 million.
The two units combine for 5,000 square feet and eight bedrooms. There’s also 325 square feet of outdoor space.
It’s a high-profile building for the low-profile hoopster, but some aspects of it make sense for the baller. High ceilings, for example; Simmons is 6-foot-11. Elevators will be helpful when his back hurts, which the Nets discovered after trading for him is pretty much all the time. (He eventually had surgery.) And it’s 15 minutes from the Barclays Center.
Fortis’ 76-unit condo project is shaping up to be one of the most lucrative in Brooklyn. From January through the beginning of May, the average asking price for signed contracts was $2,458 per square foot, $400 more than Brooklyn Heights’ Quay Tower.
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Fortis purchased the triangular site for the 33-story development from the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2018 for $91 million. Madison Realty Capital provided initial financing and later, a $163 million construction loan.
Deals at the building have made regular appearances in the weekly rankings of the top contracts signed in Brooklyn. Amenities include a fitness center, a bowling alley and indoor and outdoor pools.
Before Simmons was traded from the Philadelphia 76ers, his real estate moves indicated that he was moving on from the only franchise he had ever known, a team he held out against prior to being moved to Brooklyn.
In October, Simmons listed his mansion in Moorestown, New Jersey, for nearly $5 million. He had purchased the 10,000-square-foot property two years earlier for $2.3 million.
Simmons is expected to be ready for training camp, where he’ll take the court for the first time with two other beleaguered stars, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. He’s in the middle of a five-year, $177 million contract he signed before the 2019-20 season.
— Holden Walter-Warner