The UHNW investors, who already control two downtown office towers through private firm 99c, are expanding into neighborhood retail and residential.
An entity tied to Dawson Stellberger paid about $21.5 million for a mixed-use building at 291 President Street in Brooklyn's Carroll Gardens, together with an adjacent development site at 336 Union Street. The purchase gives the brothers control of a corner assemblage in a brownstone neighborhood.
The acquisition provides a platform for future redevelopment or repositioning of existing retail and residential space. The corner footprint is sizeable by neighborhood standards, offering flexibility that single parcels typically lack.
Dawson and Zachary Stellberger are ultra-high-net-worth brothers whose real estate activity is reshaping parts of New York City. Their purchases have been discreet but increasingly influential, spanning both neighborhood-scale assets and trophy properties.
Dawson Stellberger is a partner at 99c, a private real estate investment firm. The firm has already backed major office acquisitions downtown, including the former AIG building at 175 Water Street and the 41-story tower at 180 Maiden Lane.
The Brooklyn assemblage marks a geographic and asset-class shift for the brothers, whose prior deals concentrated on large office towers in lower Manhattan. Carroll Gardens has seen steady appreciation over the past decade, driven by tenant demand for brownstone blocks and ground-floor retail.
The Stellbergers' capital is being deployed across both neighborhood-scale and trophy assets, according to the profile. The combination suggests a portfolio strategy that pairs secure cash flow from residential neighborhoods with higher-risk, higher-return office positions.
The Deployment Angle
Family Office Real Estate Daily Desk · our analysis, not the source's
The route here is direct ownership via separate account or family partnership, not co-GP or LP commitment. The brothers appear to be writing cheques of $20 million to $100 million-plus and taking full control, a model that suits principals who can underwrite quickly and hold indefinitely without fund-life constraints.
The Brooklyn assemblage is small enough to avoid institutional competition but large enough to permit material upside through rezoning, conversion, or ground-up development on the Union Street parcel. A family office evaluating similar corner sites should price in two to three years of entitlement work and the risk that as-of-right density may not justify land basis at today's construction costs.
The office acquisitions at 175 Water Street and 180 Maiden Lane were executed when downtown towers traded at discounts to replacement cost. Family offices following a similar playbook should pressure-test lease rollover schedules and tenant credit, particularly for financial-services tenants whose space needs have contracted since 2020. The Stellbergers' willingness to move between asset classes suggests they are marking to replacement cost and rotation opportunity rather than locking into a single thesis.
Avoid replicating this strategy with leverage above 50 percent loan-to-value. The office basis is attractive only if the capital structure can survive two to three years of negative or flat mark-to-market while repositioning proceeds. The Brooklyn site pencils as patient land banking; an IRR-driven fund would not touch it.
