On May 6, 2026, Rogers Equities closed on 120 Court Street in Brooklyn Heights for $30 million. The seller: the Sorkin family, which had held the corner lot for decades. The buyer: a developer betting that a soon-to-expire Walgreens lease and a state tax incentive can unlock a 75-unit high-end rental tower.
The Sorkins sold at a moment of peak retail distress. Walgreens pays $55,000 per month in rent across 11,360 square feet. The pharmacy announced it will close June 4. Its lease expires at the end of August. Rogers Equities gets a vacant shell on a 6,000-square-foot lot at the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and Court Street, directly across from a Trader Joe's.
Plans filed in March 2026, per PincusCo, call for a 14-story, 86,913-square-foot building. The residential component totals 64,500 square feet across 75 units. The ground floor will hold retail. Amenity spaces occupy the first and second floors, plus a roof deck. A 38-bike storage room sits in the cellar. Thomas Scibilia of NA Design Studio is the registered architect.
The project relies on New York's 485x property tax incentive program. That law, passed in 2024, grants a 10-year phase-in of property taxes for new multifamily construction, with a 35% floor on affordable units. Rogers Equities has not disclosed its affordability commitment. The program replaced 421a, which expired in 2022.
Rogers Equities is not new to Brooklyn. The firm filed plans in January for a 15-story, 85-unit residential building at 246 Seventh Street in Gowanus, also designed by Scibilia. In April, Abe Waldman, who signed for Rogers Equities, purchased three parking lots at 153, 155, and 157 Ninth Street for $5.5 million, planning a six-story, 29-unit development. In January 2025, he bought a development site at 284 Fourth Avenue for $7.85 million.
The $30 million price tag implies a land basis of $5,000 per buildable square foot, based on the 86,913-square-foot plan. That is aggressive for Brooklyn Heights, where comparable land sales have traded between $3,500 and $4,500 per buildable foot over the past 18 months, per CBRE data. The premium reflects the corner location, the Trader Joe's adjacency, and the immediate vacancy timeline.
Newmark's Daniel O'Brien, Caroline Hodes, and Loren Valla represented both sides. O'Brien described the deal as delivering record-breaking pricing for the Sorkin family. The lot offers 75 feet of frontage on Atlantic Avenue and 80 feet on Court Street. The addresses 120-126 Court Street and 205-209 Atlantic Avenue are included.
The Walgreens closure is part of a broader retail contraction. The chain announced in 2025 it would shutter 1,200 stores nationwide by 2027. Brooklyn Heights loses a pharmacy but gains a development site with no leasehold encumbrance. Rogers Equities avoids the cost of a buyout or the delay of a lease expiration.
The 485x program is the key variable. Without it, the project economics shift materially. A 75-unit rental building in Brooklyn Heights, with a 35% affordable set-aside, requires rents on market-rate units of roughly $80 per square foot to achieve a 5.5% stabilized yield, per Light Tower Group estimates. At that rent level, the land basis is supportable. If 485x is challenged or delayed, the margin compresses.
Rogers Equities is placing a concentrated bet on Brooklyn's development pipeline. The firm now has three active projects in the borough: 120 Court Street, 246 Seventh Street, and the Ninth Street parking lots. Combined, they represent roughly 189 units. That is a meaningful exposure for a firm that does not disclose its balance sheet.
The Sorkin family exit is instructive. Long-term family ownership sold at a cyclical peak for land values, not at the peak of retail income. The Walgreens lease, once a stable cash flow stream, became a liability as the tenant's credit deteriorated. The Sorkins monetized the land value before the lease expired and the property became a vacant box.
Rogers Equities now owns that box. The clock starts June 4, when Walgreens locks the doors. The developer has 90 days of vacancy before demolition and foundation work can begin. The market will watch whether 485x delivers the promised tax relief, or whether the program becomes the next political target in Albany.