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Luxury Residential Developer Buys Gowanus Warehouse for $14 Million

By Leslie Albrecht | January 10, 2013 9:04am

GOWANUS — A real estate company that specializes in developing luxury residential properties has snapped up a Gowanus warehouse for $14 million.

Property Markets Group acquired the 25,000 square-foot structure at 318 Nevins St. last month and will rent it out for now, said PMG's Richard Lam.

"Right now we don't have any plans [for the building]," Lam said. "We just look for opportunities to invest and reposition properties."

Currently, the building is a hub for Verizon field technicians, who will relocate to a facility on Third Avenue and Third Street, a Verizon spokesman said.

Verizon has leased the building since 1977.

Built in 1960, the facility sits on a 100,000 square-foot lot between Union and Carroll streets and is perched on the heavily polluted Gowanus Canal. The site is across the canal from where the Lightstone Group hopes to construct a 700-unit rental complex.

"We love the area," Lam said. "We think it's dynamic."

PMG, founded in 1991, has developed two hotels in New York and dozens of residential properties in the city, including 173 MacDougal Street, a boutique condo building in Greenwich Village where Mick Jagger once considered buying. The company was also behind a golf course in South Carolina, and is currently building beachfront residential towers in South Florida.

In Gowanus, PMG was a partner in developing a 51-unit rental building at 202 Eighth St. The company also owns a building on Carroll Street next to the Gowanus Canal that currently houses a plumbing company, Lam said.

The Nevins Street warehouse is just down the block from properties that illustrate the rapidly changing neighborhood's past and future: the Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club is slated to open at  514 Union St. this year, while two blighted buildings whose owners have been repeatedly fined for safety violations are on Union and Nevins streets.