Williamsburg Mixed-Use Building Flips for $16.4M as Kent Ave Corridor Booms

A pair of mixed-use buildings at 235-237 Kent Ave. in Williamsburg has sold for $16.4 million, marking a $4.1 million jump from the $12.3 million price the seller paid just five years earlier. The 1954-built property, which totals 13,575 square feet across 14 units, sits one block from both the Bedford Avenue L subway station and the East River waterfront in a stretch of Brooklyn that has become one of the borough's hottest development corridors.

The sale was brokered by Marcus & Millichap, with Shaun Riney, Michael Salvatico and Harrison Rich procuring the buyer and marketing the property exclusively on behalf of the seller. The deal works out to roughly $1,208 per square foot, according to Traded, up sharply from the roughly $906 per square foot the seller, DAX Real Estate, paid when it acquired the building in December 2021. Traded also identifies the buyer as real estate investor Danny Wrublin, who closed the deal in July.

The property's brokerage team called it a full-circle transaction for the firm. “Marcus & Millichap successfully completed a round trip for its seller,” Shaun Riney said, according to the New York Real Estate Journal, referencing the fact that the firm had also handled the property's $12.3 million sale in 2021. That earlier transaction is part of the same round-trip arc the brokerage highlighted in announcing this year's deal.

A Tax-Driven Purchase With a Tight Clock

The buyer completed the acquisition as part of a 1031 exchange after selling a property in Downtown Manhattan, per the brokerage's account of the deal. Under Internal Revenue Code Section 1031, investors can defer capital gains taxes on the sale of investment property, but only if they formally identify a replacement property within 45 days and close on it within 180 days, according to Fidelity Investments. Missing either deadline triggers an immediate capital gains tax bill, which put real pressure on the buyer to move quickly on a deal in the Kent Avenue corridor.

That urgency also shaped how the purchase was financed. Marcus & Millichap Capital Corp. arranged $9.79 million in acquisition financing for the buyer, structured by Bradley Buzil as a five-year fixed-rate, non-recourse loan with five years of interest-only payments at a 60% loan-to-value ratio through a national bank, according to the New York Real Estate Journal. The non-recourse structure and interest-only terms gave the buyer breathing room while still satisfying the exchange's compressed timeline.

Turnkey Apartments and a Michelin-Recognized Tenant

The building itself comprises 12 free-market two-bedroom apartments alongside two ground-floor commercial spaces, one occupied by a restaurant and the other by Ume Sushi. The apartments include private outdoor space in the form of terraces and balconies, and a top-floor duplex offers skyline views, with the property described as turnkey and ready for new ownership.

Among the retail tenants is Field Guide, the Mediterranean-influenced restaurant at 235 Kent Ave. that earned a spot in the Michelin Guide in April 2025, according to Patch. A tenant roster that includes a Michelin-recognized kitchen adds to the building's appeal as foot traffic along Kent Avenue continues to grow.

Big Neighbors Reshaping the Kent Avenue Corridor

The building sits one block from the Domino Sugar redevelopment, where Two Trees Management's twin 50-story residential towers at 280 Kent Ave. reached 25% of superstructure completion in July, part of a project that will eventually bring 1,262 apartments and more than 12,000 square feet of ground-floor retail to the area, as Hoodline previously reported. Just down the block, The Refinery at Domino, a 460,000-square-foot office conversion of the historic Domino Sugar factory, hit 90% occupancy in May, underscoring strong corporate demand along the same stretch of waterfront.

That combination of new residents and office workers is fueling broader momentum in Brooklyn's commercial real estate market, even as borrowing costs remain elevated citywide. Brooklyn recorded $6.66 billion in commercial transaction volume in 2025, while the borough-wide average capitalization rate climbed to 6.96% — the third consecutive year of rising cap rates, according to GREA. Against that backdrop, the roughly 6% cap rate achieved at 235-237 Kent Ave. reflects the relative strength of the immediate waterfront micro-market compared with the broader borough.

Rents for traditional office space in Brooklyn grew at more than double the national average pace during the second quarter of 2026, according to PropertyShark, while the borough's flexible coworking inventory also expanded. The property at 235-237 Kent Ave. carries M1-2/R6A zoning and qualifies for New York City's protected tax class status for small mixed-use properties, which caps how much its annual property tax assessment can rise each year, according to LoopNet listing information.