86th Street Nathan’s Officially Sold

The Nathan’s Famous franchise has sold its nearly 20,000-square-foot, decades-old location on the border of Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights.

The property, 650 86th Street, has been a Nathan’s since the late ‘70s, before which it was a fast food burger chain named Wetson’s and before that, Mitchell’s Drive-In. It also operates currently as an Arthur Treacher’s, specializing in fast food fish and chips.

It was sold this week to “660 86 LLC,” according to the sale’s Acquisition of Assets, with sources connecting that to Efthimios Zisimopoulos, a.k.a. Tim Ziss, of Allied Properties.

“Ziss,” a source told this paper, “has been buying up whatever’s big and becomes available in Bay Ridge for quite some time.”

News of the sale, which this paper first reported in June, raised questions of its replacement as pre-tax gross proceeds of the sale of the significantly underbuilt lot came in at $12.25 million.

“It’s always unfortunate when a business goes out in the community, especially when, in cases like this, it’s a business that has been there for many, many years,” Dyker Heights Civic Association President Fran Vella-Marrone told this paper earlier this summer, “but there’s also the concern of what’s going to go there.”

And, what could go there is quite large. As this paper previously reported, the vast majority of the site is zoned C4-2A, which is the equivalent of a R6A district, according to the Department of City Planning’s Zoning Handbook. Buildings in R6A districts can rise to 70 feet as of right, with a setback required above a base height of 40 to 60 feet.

The C4-2A designation also brings with it significant density with a Floor Area Ratio (FAR) of 3.0, with FAR being a measurement that reflects the ratio between the total floor area of the building and the square footage of the lot on which it is built.

“Certainly we hope to hear soon what the proposed development will be,” Community Board 10 District Manager Josephine Beckmann said Friday morning, “and, of course, we’ll be watching and monitoring closely to see what’s coming.”

Either way, locals maintain, the sale reflects the end of an important chapter in southern Brooklyn history, this paper’s breaking of the deal prompting a flood of comments across its social media channels – some opposed to the sale, many wary of what would take its place.

“Another landmark gone,” wrote one reader.

“For this kind of money, and the zoning, I would bet it will be a condo or rental apartment,” wrote another.

The sale was made official on Tuesday, Oct. 23. Both the buyer and the seller were represented by City RE Group LLC.

The buyer could not be immediately reached for comment.

Reps for Nathan’s, however, told this paper that the eatery would be closing “in the new year.”

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