Crains New York - August 20, 2012 - (Page 13)

REPORT DONALD CAPOCCIA and his partners hit the Williamsburg market at the right time with the twotower Schaefer Landing. R E A L E S TAT E INSIDE SECOND CHANCE for Second City firm at Essex House PAGE 14 ‘Rooftop farms are good for creating jobs ... and they’re good publicity’ —Brian Coleman, CEO, Greenpoint Manufacturing Design Center Farmville on the Hudson Landlords seek bumper crops of gains from rooftop farms BY TINA TRASTER Salmar Properties is taking a uniquely top-down approach with the 1.2 million-square-foot warehouse in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, that it bought from the city last year for $10 million and is now renovating at a cost of $35 million. Keen to earn LEED certification—gold, if possible—the owner plans to add a bright green feature to the top of the eight-story property: a sprawling rooftop farm. “We wanted to plan the roof for the 21st century,” said Ian Siegel, project manager on the property for the landlord. “We want to be those people who are breaking the mold.” SQUARE He did just FOOTAGE of that in April, proposed rooftop when he farm in Hunts Point food signed distribution center rooftop growin the Bronx er BrightFarms to a minimum 10-year lease to operate a 100,000-square-foot hydroponic greenhouse atop what will be called Liberty View Industrial Plaza after the building opens next summer. The farm, in turn, has landed a contract to supply 500 tons of organic produce annually for supermarket giant A&P. Salmar may be one of the city’s largest agricultural landlords, but the list of others is growing almost daily. Acumen Capital Partners leases an acre of its office building’s roof in Long Island City, Queens—the former Standard Motor Products factory—to Brooklyn Grange for cultivation. Nearby, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Broadway Stages, a film and TV production-facility company, leases 6,000 square feet of its roof to Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, and a few blocks away, the Greenpoint Manufacturing Design Center has Gotham Greens farming a 15,000-square-foot hydroponic BIG 200K buck ennis The miracle makers These pioneers helped transform Williamsburg from an industrial wasteland to a residential oasis. Some have since moved on to more promising pastures BY AMANDA FUNG In 1998, Chaskiel Strulovitch leased a three-story former loudspeaker factory on the Williamsburg waterfront and then spent $3 million converting it into 46 loft apartments, betting people might pay as much as $16 per square foot to live there. “I live in the neighborhood, and I had a vision,” he said. “People like to live in loft space, close to Manhattan.” A swarm of eager renters soon proved Mr. Strulovitch right, snapping up all his apartments. Only this year did his luck, as well as his 13-year lease, run out. With average rents in the area around $55 per square foot, he lost his lease. Mr. Strulovitch is one of a handful of people who laid the groundwork for the transformation of a gritty, postindustrial wasteland in the city into a thriving residential oasis chockablock with towers and hipster hangouts. But while he still owns a dozen rental properties in Williamsburg, like most of the other pioneers, he has balked at expanding there in recent years as prices skyrocketed. The turning point came seven PRICEY Average monthly residential rents per square foot in Williamsburg $55 $16 1998 2012 years ago, when the city rezoned 200 blocks of north Williamsburg and Greenpoint along the waterfront to residential from manufacturing. That threw open the door to deeperpocketed players like Toll Brothers and Douglaston Development. One of the pioneers who has picked profits is Louis Silverman, who began buying up cheap land in Williamsburg so he’d have someplace to park and service vehicles for his family’s truck-leasing company. In 2005, with the winds of development clearly gathering, he sold the See BROOKLYN’S MIRACLE on Page 14 See FARMVILLE on Page 15 August 20, 2012 | Crain’s New York Business | 13

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crains New York - August 20, 2012

Crains New York - August 20, 2012
Contents
In the Boroughs
In the Markets
The Insider
Opinion
Alair Townsend
From Around the City
Report: Real Estate
Real Estate Deals
The List: Top Airlines
Classifieds
New York, New York
Source Lunch
Out and About
Snaps

Crains New York - August 20, 2012