Development Ferment on Atlantic Avenue: Real estate bigs work Brooklyn retail corridor alongside mom and pops
Wooing National Tenants, Seeking Big Rents - Are These Storefronts Worth $120 Per Square Foot?
On Sunday, Marty Markowitz was crowned King of Brooklyn on Atlantic Avenue. The other days of the year, the princes of New York City real estate are busy trying to make a buck on a mile-long segment of the retail corridor stretching from Brooklyn Bridge Park nearly to Barclays Center.
Big players like the Cayre family’s Midtown Equities and Joseph Sitt’s Thor Equities are vying with mom-and-pop property owners to win retail and restaurant tenants for sites on the Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Boerum Hill span of the thoroughfare.
There are three retail-oriented development projects at the intersection of Boerum Place – and Midtown Equities, the developer tapped to renovate DUMBO’s historic Empire Stores warehouses, is involved in one of them. A few blocks away, the owner of a popular Cobble Hill whiskey bar is constructing an apartment building with space for a new restaurant for himself plus room for a store. High-profile Thor is looking to lease a prime location, 292 Atlantic Ave., on the corner of Smith Street, and also rent out empty storefronts at Atlantic Gardens, a brightly-painted row of townhouses purchased for $23 million in May.