Watchtower ORGANIZATION Denies Sale
Rumors Say Heights Hotel May Be Transformed Into Student Housing
By Linda Collins
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society is denying it, but Brownstoner.com and subsequently Crain’s New York Business (online) reported Monday that the Bossert Hotel has sold for $100 million.
Robert Levine of RAL Development Services, who is the developer of One Brooklyn Bridge Park (also a former Watchtower property), is said to be the purchaser of the once famous hotel at a price “north of $100 million,” according to a tipster to Brownstoner.com.
Brownstoner also reported that, “Reached through his publicist, Levine had ‘no comment’ on the deal.”
Neither Levine nor his publicist responded to calls from the Eagle either, but a receptionist indicated Levine “is at the Bossert now.”
Richard Devine, a spokesperson for the Watchtower organization (also known as the Jehovah’s Witnesses), was emphatic when he told the Eagle Tuesday, “The Bossert has not been sold.”
He noted that he had heard the “buzz” on the blogs and Crain’s but said, “They never called us.”
According to Devine, there has been a lot of interest in the property. “Interest has been brisk,” he said.
Crain’s, commenting on the $100 million price tag, wrote, “That answers questions of whether a softening real estate market might keep the famed building from commanding a price tag over $100 million.”
That comment may not apply now, however, as Brownstoner later added a comment that the price tag was closer to $90 million. Its tipster “source” also indicated RAL may turn it into college student housing.
Other developers, however, have told the Eagle the Bossert would be ideal for upscale condominium development by gutting it.
As reported in the Eagle on Jan. 30, the 224-unit building at 98 Montague St. has been used as a residential building for the organization’s headquarters staff since it was acquired in 1988.
The units were described by Devine as “spacious one-bedroom apartments, along with studios.” It also has a few single rooms without kitchens for temporary guests and short-term volunteers, he said.
“The building, as originally conceived by Louis Bossert [built in 1909], was as a residential hotel, so it has always been a combination transient and residential hotel,” Devine said.
As has been its custom in selling other Heights’ properties, the Watchtower attached no asking price to the Bossert and said it was “seeking bids and a private transaction.”
According to a Watchtower fact sheet, the Italian Renaissance Revival-style building was built by lumber magnate Louis Bossert as an elegant apartment hotel in 1909 and extended back to Remsen Street in 1912.
It notes that Francis Morrone, in his book, An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn, said it was described as “the Waldorf-Astoria of Brooklyn.”
© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2008
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