Brownstoner.com founder Jonathan Butler is cashing out on his first big real estate deal.
Butler and his partners are in contract to sell the Crown Heights building that’s home to the Berg’n beer hall, an open-air Smorgasburg food market and events space to Asher Abehsera’s LIVWRK for around $60 million, sources told The Real Deal.
Butler, who sold Brownstoner in 2015, declined to comment. His partners, BFC Partners and Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group, could not immediately be reached. Abehsera was not available for comment.
Abehsera, the former manager at Two Trees Management whose LIVWRK is a partner at the Dumbo Heights complex, plans a long-term hold for the building at 1000 Dean Street, which is near fully leased to a bevy of small office tenants, sources familiar with the deal told TRD.
Butler and his partners teamed up in 2012 to buy three adjacent properties on Dean Street between Classon and Franklin avenues formerly known as the Studebaker Service Station for $11 million, and pumped in about $30 million to redevelop them as a center for startups, creative companies and light manufacturers.
The 155,000-square-foot building is about 95 percent occupied. TerraCRG brokered the off-market deal on behalf of the sellers.