What Sitex Group paid for Est4te Four’s Red Hook industrial properties

Eye on Real Estate

May 30, 2017 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Here's a glimpse of the Red Hook properties Est4te Four sold to Sitex Group. Eagle photos by Lore Croghan

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Meet Red Hook’s new Working Class Hero — to borrow a phrase from the late, great John Lennon.

We’re speaking of Sitex Group, a real-estate investment firm that focuses on industrial properties.

The Englewood, New Jersey-based firm, which is headed by Brian Milberg and David Friedman, recently closed on purchase deals for a cluster of six industrial properties in Red Hook.

The total price was $105 million, city Finance Department records indicate.

The seller was Est4te Four, a high-profile developer that first made its name in Milan, Italy. (No, that’s not a typo. The developer spells its name with a “4.”)

Est4te Four had big plans for the properties, which it had assembled into a single development site by purchasing them from multiple sellers.

The developer was going to turn the 13.5-acre site into Red Hook Innovation Studios.

Marketing materials from Cushman & Wakefield described the planned development as a campus for tenants from “the creative, tech, media, fashion, music and art sectors” with four new office buildings, a waterfront promenade and a park.

But now you can say addio per sempre (in other words, “farewell forever”) to Est4te Four’s plan.

The investors from Englewood have declared their intentions: They’re going to modernize the buildings and rent them to industrial businesses, according to the Commercial Observer, which first reported Sitex Group’s multi-property purchase.

Specifically, Milberg told The Real Deal, the immediate use of the properties will be “last-mile distribution,” which means delivering products to their final destination.

This is promising news for everybody who hopes that blue-collar job-generating businesses won’t be driven out of Red Hook by upscale development.

The properties that make up the newly purchased site are a combination of buildings and vacant land along Red Hook’s shoreline.

Part of the site juts out in a point into Buttermilk Channel. Right alongside the point, there’s a sandy beach in Louis Valentino Jr. Park and Pier with iconic cement blocks that spell out — more or less — the words “Red Hook.”

Deal details, dollar by dollar

So. Here are the details of Sitex Group’s purchase deals, property by property, as revealed by Finance Department records, compared with how much Est4te Four had paid for them.

In each case, Sitex Group made the purchases through Red Hook Industrial Center LLC, which has Sitex Group Principal David Friedman as its authorized representative.

Est4te Four did its buying through LLCs with various names.

* Red Hook Industrial Center LLC just paid a combined $25 million for 219 Sullivan St. and 44 Ferris St.

In 2014, in two separate transactions, Est4te Four had purchased 219 Sullivan St. for $10 million and had bought 44 Ferris St. for $6 million — a total of $16 million.

* Red Hook Industrial Center LLC just bought 68 Ferris St. for $42.4 million.

In 2014, Est4te Four had purchased the property for $17,503,250.

* Red Hook Industrial Center LLC just paid $13.6 million for 100 Ferris St.

In 2014, Est4te Four had paid $5,614,250 for the property.

* Red Hook Industrial Center LLC just bought 242 Coffey St. and 300 Coffey St. for a combined $24 million.

In 2014, Est4te Four had purchased 242 Coffey St. and 300 Coffey St. for a combined $9,907,500.

Est4te Four is keeping one waterside industrial building

The Commercial Observer reported that Est4te Four is holding onto one building that it had planned to incorporate into its Red Hook Innovation Studios development, namely 202 Coffey St.

It is a picturesque red-painted brick building that’s located directly across the street from Louis Valentino Jr. Park and Pier.

Finance Department records corroborate this news. They indicate that 202 Coffey St. hasn’t changed hands since 2012, when Est4te Four bought it through an LLC for $11.8 million.

A rep for Est4te Four told the Commercial Observer that the development firm will use 202 Coffey St. for film and photo shoots.

As readers will recall, Est4te Four first became well known as the redeveloper of the Zona Tortona in Milan. Est4te Four turned the run-down warehouse area into a fashion district with offices, showrooms and studios for prominent designers.

Now that Est4te Four has dropped its plan to build Red Hook Innovation Studios, its biggest project in the neighborhood is the condo conversion of 160 Imlay St.

Construction continues to progress at the century-old former New York Dock Co. building.

Right before Christmas, the ghost-white, cast-in-concrete building was tightly wrapped in plastic sheets to keep workers from being buffeted by winter winds.

When we stopped by 160 Imlay St. the other day, the plastic had been removed and replaced with construction netting. We could see that glass has been installed in many of the iconic building’s window frames.