Jed Walentas originally wanted one tenant for nearly 500,000 square feet at the Refinery at Domino. That didn't happen. The result: 90% occupancy across the glass-wrapped envelope inside a 167-year-old brick sugar plant.
Two Trees opened the $150 million conversion in 2023. The building is the commercial centerpiece of Domino Park, the firm's six-acre Williamsburg waterfront complex. Tech, media and AI companies signed on quickly.
The latest deals include a 10,380 square-foot lease on the 14th floor to Bandana, a Brooklyn-based job search platform. Skylight, operator of hospitality event spaces, added 11,000 square feet. Other tenants include Whop, Plastic Lab, LayerZero and Minerva. Equinox is the largest non-office tenant at 42,000 square feet.
Two Trees bet on a single-tenant strategy and lost. But the fallback—multi-tenant leasing—produced a result that rivals Manhattan's best-performing office assets. The building hit 90% occupancy in roughly three years, a pace that would be enviable in Midtown.
The Refinery's success reflects a structural shift in office demand. Tenants are not fleeing New York. They are fleeing older, less amenitized space in traditional central business districts. Brooklyn's waterfront offers new construction, floor plates designed for collaboration, and proximity to a dense residential base.
Manhattan's overall office vacancy rate stood at 22.5% in Q1 2026, per CBRE. Class A vacancy in Brooklyn's core submarkets was 12.8%. The Refinery is outperforming both. Its lease-up trajectory suggests that well-capitalized developers who build for the current cycle—not the last one—can still achieve institutional occupancy levels.
The tenant mix is instructive. Bandana, Whop, Plastic Lab, LayerZero, Minerva: these are not traditional law firms or financial services tenants. They are growth-stage technology companies that value talent density over prestige address. They want space that signals innovation, not hierarchy.
Equinox's 42,000 square feet is a signal of a different kind. The luxury fitness brand is a proxy for the building's demographic: young, affluent, health-conscious. That demographic works in tech and media. It lives in Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick. The commute is a walk or a short subway ride.
The Refinery's performance has implications for capital allocation. Institutional investors have largely avoided Brooklyn office assets, preferring Manhattan trophy towers or Sun Belt suburban campuses. Two Trees is proving that a well-executed conversion in a strong submarket can generate returns that rival both.
The building's lease-up also challenges the narrative that office is dead. Office is not dead. Office that fails to adapt is dead. The Refinery is a 167-year-old structure reimagined for a 21st-century workforce. That is not preservation. That is repositioning.
Two Trees' bet on a single tenant failed. Its bet on the building did not. The lesson for capital markets: underwrite the asset, not the lease-up strategy. The Refinery at Domino is 90% occupied. That is a fact. The market should treat it as one.