Williamsburg Mixed-Use Sets Sights on 2016

By Keith Loria, Contributing Editor

Heritage Equity Partners and Rubenstein Partners have submitted plans to develop 25 Kent Ave., a proposed 480,000-square-foot project in Williamsburg that would be Brooklyn’s first ground-up speculative commercial building in 40 years.

The project entered the official land use review process known as ULURP (Uniform Land Use Review Procedure).

“25 Kent was conceived as a transformative hub in Williamsburg, Brooklyn that will accommodate a mix of large, more-established businesses, smaller start-ups and mid-sized firms that are ready to take the next step in their growth,” Toby Moskovits, Heritage Equity Partners’s CEO, told Commercial Property Executive. “The building’s design—blending the area’s industrial past with its creative present, a mix of traditional brick and glass coupled with high ceilings to maximize light exposure—is critical to the overall flow, aesthetic and function of the space.”

The building at 25 Kent Ave. will run a full square block between North 12th and North 13th Streets between Wythe and Kent Avenues, providing breathtaking views of the soon-to-be-expanded Bushwick Inlet Park, the East River and the Manhattan skyline.

The proposal seeks to nurture the growth of firms that match a 21st Century definition of urban manufacturing, current economic trends and market conditions. Its stacked, flexible layout provides modular space for makers of all kinds to run from incubation through the full life cycle of their development, yet also provides larger space for more mature companies.

25 Kent is ideally located in a neighborhood that is young, vibrant, and filled with entrepreneurs, innovators and craftsmen.

“Williamsburg is overflowing with like-minded entrepreneurs seeking a new, innovative campus that fosters creativity, collaboration and innovation,” Moskovits said. “There is intense demand for new, state-of-the-art space designed specifically to accommodate the new ‘maker’ economy, with a focus on technology, and very little product to serve this need.”

According to Moskovits, Heritage Equity Partners and Rubenstein Partners are both committed to creating a
transformative mixed-use project that honors the history of the neighborhood—a mix of the old and the new that blends together seamlessly.

Over the next seven months, the development group will get input from key decision makers, and hope to get the approvals needed to move forward. Site preparation is already underway and it is prepared to begin full construction later this year.

25 Kent Ave.’s premiere brokerage team is led by David Falk of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, who has been retained as exclusive leasing agent for the building’s office space.