Crown Heights' 1000 Dean Street Changes Hands

The creative office complex fashioned out of a former Studebaker service center in Crown Heights has sold again, closing for $32.5 million on Thursday, November 16. Longtime readers may recall the adaptive reuse project was developed by Brownstoner founder Jonathan Butler, BFC Partners, and Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group.

The buyer is prominent Brooklyn developer and Cornell Realty Management founder Isaac Hager, who declined to comment via an intermediary.

“Isaac Hager is a smart operator and will do some upgrades and will aggressively market and push to get this office building filled up,” a tipster told Brownstoner. “I am sure he will succeed well. He will invest some real money in upgrading this building to make it more attractive to the tenants.”

The latest sale price is $23.45 million lower than when the entire building previously sold to Asher Abehsera of LIVWRK in 2019 for $55.95 million. However, the most recent sale does not include two retail condos, which together traded for $6 million in 2021, public records show.

Commercial real estate values have fallen in recent months thanks to the rise of remote work and higher borrowing costs. (WeWork also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month.)

A quick search for office space in Crown Heights yields a handful of options in a wide variety of sizes and conditions, including raw, move-in-ready, and co-working spaces. Although 1000 Dean Street is not fully leased, it does have tenants, including coworking company Industrious, online audio equipment dealer ProAudioStar, and community development nonprofit IMPACCT Brooklyn.

The Art Deco industrial building opened in 1930, and prominent architecture firm Selldorf Architects handled the 2014 conversion. (Selldorf also designed the award-winning city recycling center known as the Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility.)

Cornell Realty Management has many projects in Brooklyn, including developing the Williamsburg home of Trader Joe’s at 200 Kent Avenue. Hager has in recent years been in the news over litigation at Williamsburg’s 159 Broadway, next door to the Williamsburgh Savings Bank and across the street from Peter Luger, where a 26-story hotel and apartment building was planned. He recently purchased Crown Heights’ Spice Factory after a failed rezoning by another developer that threatened the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

[Photos by Susan De Vries]

Related Stories

• 1000 Dean Street Opens Today
• Past and Present: Automobile Row’s Studebaker Building
• Former Studebaker Service Station at 1000 Dean Street in Crown Heights to Become Creative Workspace

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