November 7, 2007

Brooklyn Next Stop For Transit Agency
By Theresa Agovino

REAL ESTATE

The office building that has emerged from the redevelopment of a former Macy’s
warehouse at a cost of more than $10 million has lured another tenant.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s New York City Transit signed a 16-year lease for roughly 32,000 square feet at 177 Livingston St., located between Gallatin Place and Smith Street in downtown Brooklyn. The lease covers the entire third and fourth floors and part of the ground floor. The space will house the transit agency’s Transit Adjudication Bureau and Employee Assistance Program.

The cost is around $25 a square foot, according to the MTA. An MTA spokesman says the location was chosen because of its proximity to public transportation and other agency offices on Livingston Street. The departments, currently housed at 236 Duffield St., are slated to move in the first half of next year.

The building is 75% leased, and tenants, which include HeartShare Human Services of New York and Legal Services for New York, began moving in last fall.

The Treeline Cos., which owns the building, represented both sides in the transaction. The company owns nearly 2 million square feet of office space in Brooklyn and Long Island, according to Treeline Senior Vice President Kraig Silver.