Development firm sells Williamsburg building to EPR Properties
By: Pat Ralph
EPR Properties’ Greg Silvers and Cayuga Capital Management’s John Lithen with 1 Nassau Avenue (EPR Properties, LinkedIn, Google Maps)
A Kansas City-based real estate investment trust made a deal to expand its sprawling portfolio of fitness and wellness centers into New York City.
On the other side of the transaction was a New Hampshire-based real estate firm — run by two Cornell University graduates — that appeared to make good on a Brooklyn redevelopment play.
An entity tied to Cayuga Capital Management sold a Williamsburg warehouse at 1 Nassau Avenue, home to Vital Climbing Gym, to EPR Properties for $43.3 million, according to property records filed Thursday.
That’s $40 million more than what the Manchester real estate development firm paid for the property in 2017.
Cayuga, led by Jacob Sacks and James Wiseman, inked the California-based fitness chain Vital to a 15-year lease at $110 per square foot in 2018 — instantly boosting the value of the century-old warehouse. Vital planned to build out the 31,000-square-foot property to 46,000 square feet. It marked Vital’s first location outside of California and Washington state.
“The building is spectacularly underutilized,” Vital co-founder David Sacher said at the time. “It’s really run down and we can do something cool with it.”
The property will join EPR’s nationwide portfolio of fitness and wellness centers. The REIT owns and operates 15 fitness and wellness centers in cities including Chicago, Omaha and Kansas City, as well as in Colorado and California.
The warehouse was built in the 1910s and was formerly home to manufacturer Nash Metalware Company, which launched in 1930 and became American Metal Stamping & Spinning in 1996. It is now based in Rome, New York.
Neither Cayuga nor EPR responded to requests for comment.