St. Francis Sale Goes Through … for $40 Million Less

By on April 4, 2023 11:40 pm in 11201, Brooklyn Heights, Development, Real Estate

In February we noted that St. Francis College had sold its Brooklyn Heights campus for $200 million. In March we noted that the sale may not have gone through. Now, thanks to The Real Deal, we know that there is an apparently final deal to sell the campus for $160 million, to an affiliate of Rockrose Development Corp.. Rockrose has a long history as a developer, owner, and manager of residential properties. When your correspondent first arrived in New York in 1970, he and his roommate shared a two bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side for which Rockrose was our landlord. Our only complaint was that, as early tenants in a newly rehabbed building, we had no hot water for a week or so after moving in.

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  • clarknt67

    Do you expect they’ll knock it down and build fresh or refit it for residential? I have never seen the inside so I don’t know how easily it can be converted. I expect a lot of the interior square footage lacks any windows. They appear to be only in the front and back.

  • Banet

    The have the right to build 600,000 square feet so I’d be shocked if they didn’t knock it down and build a much, much taller building.

  • Jorale-man

    What a shame. Another block bites the dust.

  • Andrew Porter
  • clarknt67

    I guess that complicates a knockdown but doesn’t rule it out. They can still ask, and they wouldn’t be wrong in saying it’s an architecturally insignificant building.

    And yeah. That is probably the plan. On the bright side to curry LMC approval they might hire an architect with some talent.

  • Andrew Porter

    It’s not the complete block; part of the Skyscraper District is on Court, and the landmarked, converted-to-apartments church is at the corner of Clinton:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c37a36cbe46787db77e070d81a2258c2260d9d5ec04f661cb01971012cee9451.jpg

  • A Neighbor

    What’s happening with 186 Remsen, next door? Magnificent building, long abandoned, Landmarks approved it as a 14-story hotel several years ago but no signs of activity.

  • Effective Presenter

    We hear the property includes a tremendous 50-meter Olympic pool for use by the St. Francis College Swim Team, Alumni, Faculty, Students, and the Heights Casino one night weekly.

  • Effective Presenter

    We suspect that the buildings will be knocked down because that appears to be the norm in today’s world.

  • Jorale-man

    Yes, I mean that in the sense that a high-rise towering over the low/mid-rise buildings upsets the architectural integrity – or what remains of it anyhow (and I realize several other tall buildings have gone up across the street already).

    Incidentally, I wonder whatever happened to 186 Remsen St. Landmarks approved a hotel there just before the pandemic but I haven’t heard anything since.

    http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/87742