NYU Doubles Office Footprint in Downtown Brooklyn

New York University has acquired 3 MetroTech Center, a 10-story Class A office building in Downtown Brooklyn, from JPMorgan for $122M.

The building, part of the 16-acre, 5M SF MetroTech Center office park and educational hub, is next door to NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering at 5 MetroTech Center. JPMorgan vacated 3 MetroTech Center in 2020.

The building acquired by NYU is the third in the mammoth MetroTech complex, built in 1992 by Forest City Ratner Companies, to trade in recent months.

In January, Boyd Watterson Asset Management acquired 9 and 11 MetroTech Center for $310M from Brookfield Properties, which bought the sprawling superblock campus on Flatbush Ave. and Jay St. in 2018 in a $6.8B deal with Forest City Realty Trust.

In February, Brookfield announced that three of the MetroTech Center buildings—a 23-story tower at 1 MetroTech Center, 10-story 2 MetroTech Center, and the 19-story 15 MetroTech Center—will be rebranded as Brooklyn Commons and undergo a $50M renovation that will include new lobbies, outdoor terraces and ground-floor retail.

Brookfield has hired James Corner Field Operations to renovate the 3.5-acre private plaza at MetroTech Center, which has been renamed Brooklyn Commons Park.

The renovation of the public green space will include new outdoor seating, gardens, enhanced lighting, new wayfinding elements and signage.

The rebranding is part of an effort to integrate part of the somewhat isolated complex into “a vibrant campus in the heart of Downtown for business, education, dining and year-round public programming for the community,” according to Brookfield’s marketing materials.

“Embracing and building upon the area’s momentous growth, we are repositioning Brooklyn Commons as an integrated, open campus for the 21^st Century,” said Callie Haines, a Brookfield Properties VP, in a statement.

Dozens of older office buildings were demolished and several blocks in Downtown Brooklyn were consolidated to make way for MetroTech Center when it was built in 1992. The 16-acre site was designated a pedestrian zone by NYC, closing the north ends of Lawrence and Duffields streets to vehicular traffic.

The MetroTech Center is occupied by back offices for companies including Verizon and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, as well as media companies and a data center service provider.

In 2017, NYU announced an investment of more than $500M in its Brooklyn campus, including the Tandon School (formerly known as Polytechnic University) and the university’s Center for Urban Science and Progress.

Last year, the university completed construction on a 735K SF building on Mercer Street at NYU’s main campus in Greenwich Village. NYU is one of the 10 largest property owners in NYC, with a portfolio of more than 110 buildings encompassing more than 15M SF of space.