Joel Schreiber is a British-born American real estate developer, investor, and founder of Waterbridge Capital.
Biography
Schreiber was born to a Hasidic Jewish family in London. He moved to New York City and in 2000 - with the help of his family and private investors - purchased residential real estate in Brooklyn, upstate New York, and New Jersey. In 2004, he sold most of the residential portfolio to concentrate on commercial properties in Manhattan. In 2006, he founded Waterbridge Capital as a vehicle for his investments. Waterbridge generally leaves the development of properties to its partners and focuses on raising capital and finding partners. His first major investment was the $190 million purchase of 536 Broadway in 2007. In 2010, he purchased a 33-percent interest in WeWork for $15 million after meeting the founders who were inquiring about a potential lease. McKelvey stated that the deal was a pivotal moment for the company. In 2012, he partnered with Ben Bernstein and Ben Stokes of RedSky Capital and purchased a group of properties for $66 million on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; they redeveloped the real estate and subsequently signedApple to a 20,000-square-foot retail lease. In 2012, Schreiber partnered with Brooklyn real estate investorDavid Werner and purchased One Court Square for $481 million in Long Island City, Queens from Stephen L. Green's, SL Green and JPMorgan Asset Management. Also in 2012, he partnered with Kenneth S. Horn of Alchemy Properties and WeWork's Neumann and purchased for $68 million the top floors of the Woolworth Building which they converted into condominiums. It is uncertain how much of an interest Schreiber presently holds in WeWork; the latest valuation is $8 billion. Along with fellow Hasidic developers in Brooklyn, Joseph Brunner, Isaac Hager, Yoel Goldman, and Simon Dushinsky, he is one of the prominent real estate developers in Brooklyn who has catalyzed the gentrification of the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Bushwick, Greenpoint, Borough Park, and Bedford-Stuyvesant.
