The event featured the professionals responsible for developing the up-and-coming neighborhoods of Brooklyn including Jamestown Properties, The Hudson Companies, Hello Living, Cayuga Capital Management, The O’Connell Organization, MNS, TerraCRG, CPEX, AptsandLofts.com, and Brownstoner.com, with a keynote from the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.
In his keynote, Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce President & CEO, Carlo Scissura noted:
• Downtown Brooklyn will see the development of 29 new apartment buildings totaling over 5,000 units.
• Midwood, Ditmus Park, Sunset Park, & Borough Park are all emerging neighborhoods.
• Sheepshead Bay needs more development -- it's on the water and close to Manhattan.
• Brooklyn companies created half of NYC's jobs over the past couple years.
• More office space is needed in Brooklyn -- not much is being developed now.
The event was broken into two panel discussions. This is what we heard:
First Panel• David Pfeffer (Tarter Krinsky & Drogin) is seeing a lot of large institutional money rolling into Brooklyn.
• Jamie Wiseman (Cayuga) still sees deal making in Brooklyn at the "college" level.
• David Kramer (Hudson Co.) sees institutional buyers only focused on limited parts of Brooklyn - Dumbo, Downtown, & Williamsburg.
• David Maundrell (AptsandLofts.com) has seen office space in Williamsburg get $50 per sqft.
• Ofer Cohen (TerraCRG) notes the ability to buy land in Brooklyn is very difficult because the price has skyrocketed.
• Most new development is for rental -- there's now a huge opportunity to develop condos.
• In new frontier neighborhoods there are hardly any comps for development purposes.
• Kramer says there's a give and take to get people to move to new developments in emerging neighborhoods.
• Wiseman notes that construction costs have gone up by 25% over the past couple years.
Second Panel
• Brian Leary (CPEX) sees huge potential for Red Hook.
• Jonathan Butler (Brownstoner.com) states bicycle connectivity is a big reason for the transformation of Brooklyn.
• Paul Proulx (Holland & Knight) sees the biggest difference between Red Hook and Dumbo/Brooklyn Navy Yard being basic infrastructure. Red Hook hasn't made a full investment yet.
• Butler bought 1000 Dean for $70 per sq ft a couple years back. A neighboring building was just bought for $150 a foot.
• Proulx notes there's a lot of city owned land in Sunset Park and sees an opportunity to take advantage.
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