A decade ago, when the Jehovah’s Witnesses sold off their prime real-estate portfolio in Brooklyn Heights, one of the prizes was a complex of old industrial buildings next to the Brooklyn Bridge — 25–30 Columbia Heights, famous for the glowing red Watchtower sign that served as a Brooklyn landmark for nearly 50 years. In 2016, the CIM Group, along with the Kushner Companies and LIVWRK, paid $340 million for the buildings with plans to convert them into a sleek office complex and film studio called Panorama.
The red Watchtower sign came down and the 700,000-square-foot complex was renovated, but Panorama didn’t take off — the Brooklyn office market never materialized as developers had hoped it would, especially after COVID. It’s been largely vacant since the Witnesses left. Now CIM, which bought out its development partners in 2018, wants to convert the buildings into something there’s ample demand for on the Brooklyn Heights waterfront: housing.
