Brooklyn's Tallest Building Goes on Market

JDS Development has listed the rental and retail portions of the 93-story residential tower it just completed at 9 DeKalb Avenue, known as the Brooklyn Tower—the tallest building in the borough.

Newmark is listing the space at 9 DeKalb encompassing 398 multifamily units and 130K SF of retail space, including a Life Time fitness center with a 20-year lease. New York-based JDS will maintain ownership of 143 condominiums in the supertall residential tower, according to a Green Street alert.

The listing is estimating the value of the property at more than $600M, or at least $1.5M per unit, which would make it one of the largest multifamily transactions in NYC since the pandemic began.

Brooklyn Tower is located in Downtown Brooklyn, near the Fort Greene, Boerum Hill and Cobble Hill neighborhoods.

The base of the building is adjacent to the former Dime Savings Bank building, which dates to the early 1900s and was sold to JDS and New York-based Chetrit Group in 2015 for $90 million. JDS later bought out Chetrit’s stake in the project.

According to Green Street, the marketing campaign will be headed by Douglas Harmon and Adam Spies, who joined Newmark last month from Cushman & Wakefield.

In exchange for limiting rents on 30% of the rental units to tenants making no more than 130% of the area’s average median income, the property has a tax abatement for 35 years. A buyer could raise rents on the remaining units.

The 93-story building’s apartments range from studios to three bedrooms. High-end finishes include European white oak flooring, Miele appliances, floor-to-ceiling windows and 11-foot ceilings.

Amenities include a 75-foot pool and outdoor lounge space, a 66th-floor sky park and an 85th-floor sky lounge, which has a full-length basketball court and a private dining area, among other features. The Life Time space encompasses 77,000 SF, including a gym and coworking components.

There have only been three multifamily trades valued for more than $500M in NYC since the beginning of the pandemic, according to Green Street’s database.

These include the $837M sale in March 2022 of the 761-unit American Copper Buildings on Manhattan’s East Side; the $930M sale of the 899-unit tower at Eight Spruce Street to Blackstone in June 2022; and Atlas Capital’s $506M purchase of Denizen Bushwick in Brooklyn in December 2021.