Jehovah's Witnesses Put Their Last Empty Lot in Brooklyn Up for Sale
The triangular shaped parking lot at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge in Dumbo has the potential to become a mixed-use building of 14 stories.
Photo via Watchtower
The Jehovah’s Witnesses have been gradually selling off their massive Brooklyn real estate portfolio, and they’ve now put their last empty Brooklyn lot up for sale.
The triangular shaped parking lot at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge in Dumbo has the potential to become a mixed-use building of 14 stories. Known as 1 York Street or 30 Front Street, it is for sale for an undisclosed sum — and could fetch in the neighborhood of $54 million, or about $300 per buildable square foot — if history is anything to go by.
The lot measures 52,171 square feet with 180,944 buildable square feet — and possibly as much as 250,000 buildable square feet, according to the Jehovah’s Witnesses real estate website. It’s zoned R7-1 with a residential FAR of 3.44 and a facility FAR of 4.8.
In 2011, the Witnesses started putting their considerable Brooklyn holdings up for sale, estimated to be worth well over $1 billion, in preparation for a move upstate to Warwick, N.Y.
Other properties formerly owned by the Witnesses that have been redeveloped or are slated for redevelopment include Dumbo Heights (located at 117 Adams Street, 77 Sands Street, 55 Prospect Street, 81 Prospect Street, and 175 Pearl Street) and the former Witnesses headquarters at 25-30 Columbia Heights in Brooklyn Heights.
Another parking lot and former Witnesses property at 85 Jay Street in Dumbo may become a 21-story, 737-unit mixed-use rental and condo building, plans filed this week revealed. That property sold in 2016 for $345 million, an average price per buildable square foot of $313.63.
Assuming a similar price per square foot at 1 York Street, the property could sell for somewhere in the range of $54 million to $78 million.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses are nearing the end of their Brooklyn portfolio of holdings, but they haven’t put everything up for sale just yet. Buildings not yet on the market include a townhouse at 80 Willow Street and a carriage house at 86 Willow Street, both in Brooklyn Heights.
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