Four years ago, 45 Douglass Street was a $2.5 million gut-renovation shell on a tree-lined Boerum Hill block between Smith and Court streets; this month, it set a neighborhood benchmark north of $2,460 a square foot. Lands 45 LLC closed on the newly transformed, 25-foot-wide fee-simple townhouse at 45 Douglass Street on September 8, 2026 for $11.4 million, delivering a 355.8 percent gross step-up over the $2.5 million shell price paid by 45 Douglass Holdings, LLC in March 2022. When the deed closed on September 8, 2026, Lands 45 LLC had officially taken down 45 Douglass Street from 45 Douglass Holdings, LLC for $11.39 million, with Brooklyn Townhouse Advisory brokering the trade.

Look past the sticker price and the trade tells a clear story about replacement cost in Brooklyn. At $2,463 a square foot—or $11,395,000 a door across its 1 apartments— across 4,626 square feet, the closing price marks a 355.8 percent step-up over the $2.5 million basis recorded in March 2022. In today's five-borough construction market, buying modern or well-maintained brick at $2,463 a square foot still beats the time and cost of digging a foundation from scratch.

Morgan Stanley Private Bank Writes $6 Million at 52.7 Percent LTV

The real tell in any Brooklyn closing sits on the debt side of the ledger. To fund the purchase, Lands 45 LLC locked in a $6 million private bank senior acquisition mortgage from Morgan Stanley Private Bank, N.A. at 52.7 percent loan-to-value.

That loan commitment meant the buyers only needed to write a $5.39 million equity check to control a 3-story, 1920-vintage Boerum Hill asset. Credit committees aren't stretching to 75 percent leverage anymore, but when a sponsor brings $5.39 million of real cash equity and a basis of $2,463 a square foot, lenders like Morgan Stanley Private Bank, N.A. are wide open for business.

From Our Desk

When we look at 45 Douglass Street on our placement desk at Light Tower Group, the lesson for New York sponsors comes down to the marriage of entry basis and capital structure. Lands 45 LLC didn't try to fight the tape—they bought Boerum Hill footage at $2,463 a square foot and structured the stack to match the asset's timeline. Ultra-wide brownstone redevelopments in Boerum Hill and Cobble Hill remain one of the few NYC residential strategies where value-add sponsors can turn a $2.5 million shell into an $11.4 million private-bank-financed exit inside of four and a half years.