$83.5M Brooklyn Development Deal Moves Ahead

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN— A development site has sold for $83.5 million between Fulton Street and Lawrence Street, with plans for a large mixed-use project featuring retail and housing at the site.

Borough Developers bought the 33,153-square-foot property at 485 Fulton St. and 147 Lawrence St. from ICER Real Estate.

The site can accommodate up to 356,369 square feet of zoning floor area and currently contains a 139,438-square-foot building.

Preliminary plans call for four buildings with ground-floor retail and residential space above.

The property sits within an Inner Transit Zone, where new residential development does not require parking, and can benefit from additional development flexibility under City of Yes, the City’s zoning changes.

What Could Be Built?

The site occupies the northeast corner of Fulton and Lawrence streets and extends to Bridge Street.

The property sits near multiple subway lines and within walking distance of Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens.

“This sale speaks to the continued strength of investor conviction in Downtown Brooklyn,”Michael Mazzara, managing director at JLL Capital Markets, said. “There are very few opportunities of this size in a neighborhood with this level of transit access, residential demand and established retail.”

The newly sold site sits directly across Fulton Street from BKX, a planned 440,000-square-foot retail and entertainment complex at 422 Fulton St., the former Macy’s building.

United American Land, Dreamscape Retail & Entertainment and the Jackson Group are redeveloping the five-story building for large-format retailers, restaurants, entertainment operators, hospitality, wellness businesses and cultural uses.

Leasing has begun at BKX, which will include floor plates of roughly 60,000 to 70,000 square feet and a central atrium designed as the property's main gathering space.

How Has Downtown Brooklyn Changed?

Downtown Brooklyn has undergone a major demographic shift alongside its residential growth.

The population of the broader Downtown Brooklyn-Fort Greene area grew from about 52,860 in 2000 to 79,470 in 2020.

The proportion of White and Asian residents increased during that period, while the proportion of Black residents declined, according to the City Planning Department.

A 2020 study of Brooklyn's gentrification patterns identified parts of Downtown Brooklyn, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and nearby neighborhoods as experiencing some of the strongest gentrification pressures in Black Brooklyn.

The study found Northwest Black Brooklyn became majority White after 2013, while North Black Brooklyn lost 61,886 Black residents between 2000 and 2018 and gained 79,895 White residents.

What Happened After The 2004 Rezoning?

Downtown Brooklyn's transformation accelerated after the City rezoned the neighborhood in 2004, allowing substantially more residential and commercial development.

Since then, Downtown Brooklyn has added more than 32 million square feet of new development, according to the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership.

JLL says the neighborhood has absorbed more than 10,000 new residential units since 2014. The growth has brought more residents and housing options, but much of the new construction has targeted the market-rate segment.

From 2010 through 2025, Brooklyn added more than 131,000 units in buildings with four or more apartments; 68 percent were market-rate, compared with 22 percent classified as income-targeted, according to the NYU Furman Center.

Are Higher Rents Driving Displacement?

Residential costs remain a central part of the neighborhood's transformation. The average rent for a signed lease in Downtown Brooklyn reached $5,013 in May 2025, according to Corcoran.

Across Brooklyn, inflation-adjusted median gross rent increased 17.9 percent between 2013 and 2023, according to the NYU Furman Center.

In 2024, 28.1 percent of Brooklyn renter households spent more than half their income on rent.

For commercial properties, average asking rents on Fulton Street fell from a peak of $359 per square foot in late 2018 to $175 per square foot in the first half of 2024 before rebounding in 2025, according to the Real Estate Board of New York.