Inside One Montague Place: How Jonathan Landau Is Reimagining Luxury Living in Brooklyn Heights

Landau Properties Founder and CEO Jonathan Landau on the buyer he's building for, why the $550 million project has no local competition, and how two premium buildings will live under one roof.

"Many developers design a building and then go looking for buyers," Jonathan Landau said. "We do it the other way around."

That inversion is the thesis behind One Montague Place, Landau Properties' $550 million development in Brooklyn Heights and one of the most ambitious residential projects the neighborhood has ever seen.

Rising at the corner of Montague Street across from Cadman Plaza, steps from Borough Hall, the building will hold 46 condominiums and 90 rental residences above 40,000 square feet of retail, with sales launching next year and completion targeted for 2029.

Building for the Buyer First

Landau's process starts not with a design but with a person. His team studies what a market actually wants before locking in any design decisions, and he calls One Montague Place the clearest example of that approach in action.

"We knew exactly who these homes were for before we drew a single floor plan," he said.

That buyer is a mix of locals and outsiders. A large share, in Landau's view, will come from Brooklyn Heights itself, residents who love the neighborhood but are outgrowing aging apartments and townhomes. Others, he believes, will come from Manhattan, drawn across the river by something they can't find at home. "When you build something this rare, you expect interest from across the country and around the world," he said.

What unites them is a shared wish list: "Gracious, grand spaces, the finest materials, views you cannot get anywhere else, and amenities built around how they actually live."

Pricing Against Manhattan, Not Brooklyn

One Montague Place isn't positioning itself against other Brooklyn towers because, in Landau's view, there's nothing to position against. "There are no other projects being built or planned that compare with or compete against our product," he said. The benchmark instead is the top tier across the river: "We expect to achieve similar pricing to premium Manhattan buildings."

For Landau, the comparison says as much about the product as it does about the neighborhood.

A Jazz Club Rooted in the Heights

Rather than importing amenities that could exist anywhere, Landau wanted spaces rooted in the neighborhood itself. Two of the building's more unusual offerings, a jazz club and a private membership club, are designed to tap directly into that identity. "Brooklyn Heights has always been defined by its cultural history, whether literary, musical or artistic," Landau said. The challenge was making the building speak to the neighborhood and its future residents at once.

"We knew the building had to reflect two things at once. The sensibility of what it means to live in Brooklyn Heights, and the kind of experiences these residents expect. We believe the jazz club and the membership club deliver on both, and we look forward to sharing more in the coming months."

Details on how the spaces will operate, including whether non-residents will have access, are still to come.

The Front Door to the Neighborhood

With 40,000 square feet of retail planned for the building's base, Landau is treating the commercial component as core to the project rather than a filler use. "Retail is not an afterthought here, it is the front door to the neighborhood," he said.

His filter for tenants is deliberately simple. "Does the use enhance the residential experience for residents and does it enhance the neighborhood? If the answer to both is yes, it fits."

Two Buildings, One Shell

Housing 46 condominiums and 90 rentals in the same structure could easily create friction between two very different resident populations. Landau's solution was to treat them as two entirely separate buildings sharing one shell.

"The condominium and the rental residences operate as two distinct buildings, each with its own entrance on different streets, its own amenities and its own services," he said. "It also lets us hold each side to its own standard. The rental residences will be the finest of their kind in Brooklyn or Manhattan. This was never one side and a lesser side. It is two premium buildings within one shell that operate independently."

That separation, Landau says, is intentional and reflects what condominium buyers consistently value.

One Thesis, Two Markets

That buyer-first philosophy extends beyond Brooklyn. Landau Properties is simultaneously wrapping up One Kane in Bay Harbor Islands, Florida, and Landau frames the two projects as expressions of the same process rather than unrelated efforts. "It comes back to how we develop," he said. "With One Kane and with One Montague Place, we start with a very specific client in mind and build to meet their needs, not the other way around."

And a different market, in his experience, doesn't mean a different buyer.

"The buyer in Brooklyn Heights and the buyer in South Florida want the same things at heart. Premium quality and design, lifestyle-aligned real estate, privacy and service. What changes is the setting."

One Kane is shaped by the water and the pace of Bay Harbor Islands; One Montague Place by Brooklyn Heights history and the New York skyline. The client, in Landau's telling, is the constant.

A Repeatable Discipline

Asked how One Montague Place stacks up against his other projects in ambition and complexity, Landau declined to play favorites. "I don't rank our buildings against each other," he said. He pointed instead to Indian Creek Residences and Yacht Club, which sold out at the end of last year, as validation of the broader approach: "Study the buyer, design to real demand, and the market responds. One Montague Place is a natural evolution of that same discipline, now in one of the great neighborhoods in New York."

After more than two decades developing large-scale projects, his definition of ambition has less to do with scale than with fit.

"Ambition is not about size or difficulty for its own sake. It is about getting the right building exactly right for the place it sits and the individuals who will ultimately make up its community."

The Risk Is Time

With construction underway, Landau is candid that the real risk in a project of this scale isn't design or demand. "The honest answer is that the risk in a project like this is time and coordination," he said. His answer has been a team of repeat collaborators.

"You derisk a project of this scale by assembling the best partners and talent in the business, and that is exactly what we have done. In every discipline we brought together people we have worked with again and again, because we trust them to execute at the highest level."

From here, Landau says, his role shifts from creator to steward. "My job now is to make sure a building with this many moving parts gets delivered without losing the details that make it worth doing. That is what I watch and what I safeguard."

A Staged Reveal

The rollout will unfold in phases rather than all at once. "We are unveiling the building in stages," Landau said, noting that a select group of early buyers has already been previewing the project. "Every one of those conversations has reinforced our confidence in what we are building."

The market shouldn't expect a single big reveal. "The rest will be revealed methodically and in a disciplined fashion. In the meantime, the construction itself will tell the story as the building begins to rise."

Looking ahead, Landau says the firm is actively evaluating new opportunities in New York and South Florida that align with its development thesis, while keeping its focus firmly on One Montague Place and One Kane. "The pipeline is incredibly exciting, and I look forward to sharing more as those projects continue to take shape," he said.

For a developer who starts every project with a person rather than a plan, the next building will begin the way this one did: with the buyer, before a single floor plan is drawn.