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The Jehovah's Witnesses' exodus from Brooklyn is nearly complete.
The Witnesses completed the sale of 74 Adams St. in Dumbo, a 24K SF lot with a parking garage the Witnesses constructed in 1976 to service the organization's vehicle fleet. The lot comes with 144K SF of development rights and is already zoned for mixed-use.
Though the Witnesses did not name the buyer, in May it was reported that Jeffrey Gershon of Hope Street Capital had agreed to pay $60M for the site. In September, Gershon filed permits to demolish the parking structure, according to Brooklyn Eagle.
After the sale of 74 Adams St., as well as higher-profile transactions such as the $300M-plus sales of the Watchtower headquarters and a parking lot to a group led by Kushner Cos., the last remaining property listed as available by the Witnesses is 1 York St. (or 30 Front St.), just north of the Brooklyn Bridge in Dumbo.
The 52K SF property at 1 York is a parking lot, but it comes with the ability to build up to 250K SF and 14 stories. Once that sells, the Witnesses will have divested from Brooklyn, the organization's home for over 100 years. The religious organization began selling off Brooklyn properties when it purchased the land for its new headquarters in Warwick, New York, in 2009. Employees moved upstate after the sale of the Watchtower complex in 2016.
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