Brooklyn Heights resident and real estate broker Donald Brennan files this guest post:
After reading the ‘Real Deal on Watchtower Properties’ post here last week I got to thinking – a billion dollars, for 25 properties, where did that number come from? While I am aware of the impeccable condition of these properties, inside and out, my initial reaction was – that’s crazy! Isn’t it? Maybe not. (more…)
The Real Deal looks at the Watchtower’s Brooklyn Heights real estate holdings and speculates how much the organization could make once it decides to put its remaining properties here on the market:
The Real Deal: Over the next decades, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, as it is officially known, bought up some incredibly valuable real estate as its operation expanded. Today, the organization’s portfolio totals 25 Brooklyn properties — brownstones, Beaux Arts multifamilies, modern high-rises and parking lots — that are said to be worth at least $1 billion.
But the Heights’ largest landlord may soon be its biggest property seller. Continuing a trend that started in 2004, when the Witnesses sold a warehouse that became the condo One Brooklyn Bridge Park, the group has been steadily downsizing in order to relocate upstate.
Indeed, the Witnesses have built a new printing plant in Wallkill in upstate New York, and an educational center across the river in Patterson. It’s also planning an $11.5 million facility in Warwick. If that proposal gets a green light and market conditions improve, a slew of properties in Brooklyn Heights, Downtown Brooklyn and Dumbo could soon change hands.
A nice spread detailing the properties after the jump: (more…)
A former Jehovah’s Witness, now a convert to Orthodox Catholicism, recounts his days as a “Bethelite” in the Witnesses’ Brooklyn Heights headquarters, here.
Sure the folks over at the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society aka Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t “celebrate” Halloween but they took to the streets of the North Heights this morning to “Trick or Tract”.
We’ve discussed the unneighborliness of Watchtower knocking in the Heights before and this morning’s doorbell ringing was no exception. While it was amusing to hear a woman on the intercom who sounded like Cloris Leachman in Young Frankenstein it was still an unnecessary violation of my personal space. So, Watchtower folks we’re sorry you’re bummed the world is ending soon but next time just Tweet us your “good news”.
A tipster alerted us to this news item on The Real Deal blog about the imminent sale of Hotel Bossert:
R.A.L. Companies & Affiliates is expected to buy the former Hotel Bossert at 98 Montague Street for $92 million and turn it into student housing, according to Robert Levine, president and CEO of R.A.L. Companies & Affiliates.
“It’s pretty much a done deal,” he said, adding that he expects to close on the sale by the end of the month.
The hotel, once known as the Waldorf-Astoria of Brooklyn, will now suffer the same fate as its cousin, the St. George.
Robert Levine made this amusing statement about the deal:
“It is truly a beautiful landmark building,” Levine said. He said his company intends to renovate the interior of the 140,000-square-foot building and turn it into student housing. R.A.L. would then sell or lease the building to a university.
I’m trying to picture the Waldorf-Astoria draped in purple and white. Seriously, can you see this lobby as a dorm hall?
Brownstoner is reporting that The Watchtower Group has agreed to sell the Bossert Hotel [98 Montague Street] to Robert A. Levine, the developer behind condos at One Brooklyn Bridge Park. (more…)
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