Last month, a group of 20 current and former tenants at the building filed a $10 million lawsuit, claiming that their apartments were made nearly uninhabitable during two years of renovations, when an army of workers trooped through the seven-story building on the Brooklyn waterfront. The tenants say the sound of drilling reverberated through the hallways. A fine layer of dust covered their furniture and clothing at the end of each day.

“Anytime we lose rent-protected units, it’s a problem,” said Stephen T. Levin, the city councilman who represents Williamsburg and other parts of Brooklyn. “We have an affordable housing crisis. It’s also harder and harder to find middle-income housing on the open market.”

The Kushners denied the charges that they deliberately drove out renters. In a statement, the Kushner companies insisted that they took all the appropriate precautions to protect existing tenants, including daily vacuuming, mopping and daily air scrubbing. State officials are investigating the tenants’ claims.

This is not a story of low-income families being forced out of their homes. But it is a classic tale of gentrification and profit-taking on the Brooklyn waterfront over the past two decades. First, small manufacturers, breweries and sugar mills made way for artists and musicians who remade industrial buildings into lofts. They, in turn, were replaced by young professionals buying pricey apartments in the renovated factories or in the new glassy towers that have sprung up.

At its center is the family real estate company once led by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who has moved to Washington to be a White House adviser. Mr. Kushner led the company’s push into New York real estate, from its roots in New Jersey, a move that included the purchase of 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan for a record $1.8 billion, that brought the company to the brink of financial disaster, until it was bailed out in a deal by Brookfield Asset Management this month.