Here’s what it’s like living in an empty, luxury Brooklyn high-rise
Brooklyn’s tallest edifice, the 93-story Brooklyn Tower, is a neo-Gothic giant with a big problem: It’s practically a luxury ghost town.
Tamara Peterson and her Pomeranian, Levi, are holding down the fort on its 58th floor, but they’re among the scant few calling this place home, reported Curbed.
Peterson snagged her one-bedroom pad more than a year ago. She’s still waiting to splash in the pool circling the Guastavino dome, or unleash Levi on the “world’s highest dog run” up on 66 — with both stuck in limbo, unfinished.
This executive assistant isn’t sweating it, though. Silverstein Capital Partners, the new landlords after acquiring the tower from JDS Development in a $672 million foreclosure deal last summer, has been tossing her some sweet perks.
“They’ve done stuff for us,” she told Curbed in an interview. “They know they’re not finished.”
Think free gym passes to other Life Time spots while the building’s ritzy 80,000-square-foot athletic club remains shut, plus “generous” cuts to her common charges since there’s not much to charge for yet.
But don’t let the freebies fool you — this skyscraper’s got drama.
Out of 143 condos, 19 have sold.
Located at 55 Fleet St. in downtown Brooklyn, Silverstein is gearing up to relaunch sales this spring with Corcoran Sunshine. The question remains if units will get sold.
“It always leaves a stench,” Compass broker Maggie Marshall told the outlet, pinning it on sky-high prices.
Still, she’s not writing it off: “It’s not like you’re going to have a building sitting empty for the next 300 years. It’ll fill up; it just depends on what structure, rental or condo.”
It was once billed by its developer, Michael Stern of JDS, as “a symbol of Brooklyn’s unceasing drive and ambition.”
“If you look at the Brooklyn real-estate market as a whole, downtown Brooklyn is always kind of a fallback to other neighborhoods,” Brown Harris Stevens broker Ari Harkov — a longtime borough expert — told Curbed. “It’s hard to take what is a fallback neighborhood and achieve a top-tier price.”
He admits the views and swanky finishes are a draw, but adds, “Obviously, the building has amenities and services and views, things you can’t get in a four-story walk-up in Park Slope, but at the end of the day, there’s a smaller buyer pool that wants to make that trade.”
The financial mess didn’t help. JDS kicked off sales in spring 2022 after years of hype, but by 2023, when the first renters trickled into the 398 leased units, the developer was already drowning. They tried unloading the rentals and 130,000 square feet of retail for over $600 million — no takers.
Condo sales crawled, and by March 2024, JDS choked on a $240 million loan from Silverstein, who’d also scooped up their $424 million mortgage. Foreclosure loomed, but a settlement handed Silverstein the keys in July.
Brooklyn’s luxury market isn’t dead, though — Compass broker Ryan Garson points to 11 Hoyt as proof. The Tower’s issue has mainly been due to pricing, again. Either those tags drop, or Silverstein might rent out the condos to stop the cash bleed.
Donna Olshan, a Manhattan luxury tracker, isn’t fazed: she’s seen flops like One High Line rise from the ashes.
Adam Chang, who snagged a one-bedroom for $1.3 million, doesn’t care about the empty floors above.
“There’s fewer people in the elevator, but I don’t know who’s complaining about that,” he said, loving his Fort Greene Park views and the “super-friendly” staff who have hauled his fridge upstairs.
For Peterson, the quiet’s a bonus — Levi’s been a silent pup with no hallway strangers to yap at.
“It’s quite peaceful up here,” she says.
