Brown Harris Stevens acquires former 6,746 s/f Post Office for $3.05 million

Southhampton, NY The former US Post Office on Nugent St. sold for $3.05 million to Kent Swig’s Brown Harris Stevens residential brokerage firm. The post office was owned by Bobrow Postal Associates, a company managed and owned by Norman Bobrow, the president of the Manhattan commercial leasing company Norman Bobrow & Co. Inc., and his family.

According to Bobrow, Brown Harris Stevens had planned to open a new BHS brokerage office in the post office building, that is centrally located in town, but decided to hold it as an investment property.

The 6,746 s/f one-story, colonial-style traditional red brick building with 20-car parking lot, was originally purchased by Bobrow’s father, real estate developer Louis Bobrow in 1975.

At one time  Louis Bobrow owned the largest number of post office buildings in the state, with Southampton becoming the 26^th such building in his  possession. When Louis died in 2006, he left the Nugent St. location to his 16 heirs including his son Norman. The U.S. Post office vacated the circa-1960 colonial style building in 2009 when it moved to larger, 8,000 s/f space on North Sea Road in Southhampton.

The Bobrow family originally put the property on the market for sale back in 2011 for $6.5 million (and also for lease for $30 per s/f), but there were no takers. The owners had a term sheet with TD Bank but the deal fell through. In the summer of 2014 the family decided to put the property on Auction.com but no offers came to fruition.

 The building is in downtown, between the Astoria Federal Savings Bank and HSBC with Chase Manhattan Bank across the street on what is called “Bank Row,” said Bobrow. “We are happy to close a deal and finally say goodbye to the post office,” said Bobrow. “But it will be the end of an era for us.”