What’s next for Est4te Four’s Red Hook Innovation Studios project?

Eye On Real Estate

April 6, 2016 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle

This Coffey Street building at the Red Hook Innovation Studios site is so big that we had to stand on Valentino Pier to fit it all into the photo. Eagle photos by Lore Croghan

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And Where Do We Go From Here?

(That’s a line from a David Essex song, which Def Leppard also sang.)

Executives from Est4te Four might be asking themselves that question about their mammoth Red Hook Innovation Studios development site.

They’ve assembled a nearly 1.2 million-square-foot waterfront site that includes picturesque red-painted industrial building 202 Coffey St., which would be adaptively reused as an events venue.

Last summer, they retained brokerage Cushman & Wakefield to find an equity partner for the 13.5-acre project. It would also have four new office buildings, a waterfront promenade and a park and would “provide a unique work setting … fostering the synergies between companies within the creative, tech, media, fashion, music and art sectors,” according to Cushman & Wakefield’s marketing materials.

But, a brokerage firm spokesman told the Brooklyn Eagle, “Cushman & Wakefield is no longer marketing the Red Hook Innovation Studios project.”

The Eagle reached out to Est4te Four to ask if the developer will move forward on the development without an equity partner or keep searching for one, but didn’t receive a response by deadline.

The existing buildings on the site bounded by Sullivan, Ferris and Coffey streets and the East River will be vacant by June, Cushman & Wakefield’s marketing materials indicate.

As of this moment, Est4te Four has not sold an equity stake in the project — or at least, there’s no indication in city Finance Department records that any such deal has been finalized.

A spokesman for NBBJ, an architecture firm involved in planning the Red Hook Innovation Studios development, told the Eagle it is “continuing to work with the client to design and refine the project.” The spokesman didn’t elaborate beyond that.