Renovation, T-Mobile Store to Spruce up Look, Retail Rents on Downtown Strip

Just what Brooklyn needs: Another T-Mobile.

An additional outpost of the cell phone and communications company has signed a lease at 93 Court Street — a once-glorious Tudor-style architecture office — for $200 a square foot, a CPEX spokesperson told Brownstoner, in what may well be a new high for the area’s retail rents.

Based on a rendering from CPEX, which brokered the deal, the facade of the building will be repaired for the better, but sadly not restored. Trust us, you want to see it in its original glory:

Built in 1927, 93 Court Street was the office of architects Martyn Weinstein and Samuel Malkind. The building was bought for $63,000 in 1967 by a member of the Vendikos family, and they’ve owned it  — under the company Tomtro Realty — ever since.

A Boneheads restaurant was planned for the ground floor space in 2013 — until the Department of Buildings rejected plans for a $1,000,000 interior renovation.

“Unfortunately, the franchisees ran into structural problems, which has caused construction to be delayed,” Boneheads publicist Kelly Ronna told the Brooklyn Eagle in June of 2013.

Records show that Tomtro Realty took out a $1,450,000 mortgage on the building in July, and Brownstoner spotted much-need repairs being done at the building not long after.

Optimistically, we hoped the repairs would include a full exterior restoration. But the rendering shows the lovely half-timbered trim will remain hidden and that even more original details — including the random patterned brick, heraldic-style shield and multi-paned window under the peaked roof — will be covered or removed.

But 93 Court Street will certainly more attractive than it was in its falling-down state.

The ground-floor space measures about 2,200 square feet. Retail rents on this stretch of Court Street have doubled in the past three years, according to CPEX.

Rents along Court Street were averaging $100 to $150 a square foot, with some approaching $200 per square feet, over the summer, an exec from TerraCRG told us at the time.

Indeed, new businesses like Paris Baguette, Sephora, Spin, and Dos Toros have recently appeared along on the street. And with more than 9,000 new apartments planned for the area in the next three years, it’ll likely get even livelier.

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Whimsical Tudor at 93 Court Street in Downtown Brooklyn Receives Repairs
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