Abraham Leifer’s Downtown Brooklyn Hotel Faces Foreclosure

Eli Karp, Abraham Leifer, 291 Livingston Street (Linkedin, Getty, Gene Kaufman Architects)

UPDATED, Nov. 1, 5:25 p.m.: After five years, a 100-key hotel in Downtown Brooklyn is finally nearing completion. Unfortunately for its owners, it’s now facing foreclosure.

Acres Capital seeks to foreclose on the equity interests in the 22-story hotel at 291 Livingston Street, alleging the hotel’s ownership group defaulted on a $29.7 million mortgage.

Eli Karp’s Hello Living acquired the site from developer John Catsimatidis for $11.1 million in 2017. It was then meant to be part of a $70 million assemblage sale to Abraham Leifer’s Aview Equities, but that deal collapsed amid numerous lawsuits. Leifer remained an investor in the hotel project, though, and public filings since 2018 list him as the managing member of the hotel’s ownership group.

Karp filed plans to build the hotel in 2017 and tapped Gene Kaufman as the architect. As it rose above Downtown Brooklyn, the building became known for the black-and-white striped mural on its exterior.

The ownership group recently put the hotel up for sale. A listing posted in September noted that the building was 95 percent complete and would be a Wyndham-branded hotel with space for a beer garden or other retail tenant on the ground floor. Jay Hershowitz of Birchwood Realty Group, who is marketing the property, said the asking price for the hotel is $35 million.

It’s unclear how much of the project is still owned by Karp. The developer, who was once among Brooklyn’s most active residential builders, has faced hard times of late. Another lender, Jeff Simpson’s Arch Companies, won a foreclosure auction in September for the equity in his marquee rental project at 1580 Nostrand Avenue in Flatbush. Last week, Karp’s 55-unit apartment building at 271 Lenox Road in Prospect Lefferts Gardens went into receivership.

Matthew Mannion of Mannion Auctions is the auctioneer for the foreclosure sale on the hotel project, which is set for December 6.

Acres did not return a request for comment, nor did Karp or Leifer.