New York Buildings sold
Private real estate management firm ING Clarion Partners bought the 42-unit rental building at 44 Berry Street in Williamsburg for $27 million. The 54,000-square-foot, six-story former quinine factory building was developed by Cayuga Capital Management. The fully-leased building includes six retail spaces on the ground floor.The sale of GLC Group's 16-story condominium building in Clinton Hill has closed, a real estate investment group from New York City and Northern California paid $21 million for the Karl Fischer-designed tower, , when 35 to 40 percent of the 49 units at 163 Washington Avenue were in contract to be sold for between $250,000 and $767,000.
DiamondRock Hospitality is finalizing a deal to purchase the 712-room Radisson Lexington Hotel at 511 Lexington Avenue between 47th and 48th Streets for $335 million, or $470,000 a room. That's a step up from the $443,700 per room that RLJ Development paid for the 775-room Double Tree Metropolitan hotel three blocks north in December.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has finalized a deal to lease the Whitney Museum of American Art's Upper East Side building when the Whitney opens its Meatpacking District location in 2015. The long-anticipated deal comes as the Whitney prepares to break ground on its new, $680 million Renzo Piano-designed facility on Gansevoort Street. The Met, which will take the Whitney's Marcel Breuer building at 945 Madison Avenue for eight years with the option to extend, plans to use the space to house its modern and contemporary art collections.
A 29,700-square-foot office condominium at 137-139 West 25th Street in Chelsea sold last week for $10 million. The buyer, 137 West 25th Street LLC, paid an average of $2 million per floor, or $337 per square foot, to an undisclosed publicly traded Fortune 500 company. The buyer intends to lease the property, between Sixth and Seventh avenues to Micropower USA/ Micropower Career Institute, a school for continuing education that already has seven other locations in the city. Development has already begun on the property to include classrooms and science laboratories.
SL Green Realty and Jeff Sutton are in contract to purchase the landmarked I. Miller Shoe Building at 1552 Broadway for $135 million from the Riese Organization. The joint venture, which is slated to close on the purchase by summertime, is likely to shutter the building's iconic TGI Friday's and replace it with "a use that no one has thought of." The 15,000-square-foot property comes with some air rights as well as two billboards that can be upgraded to LED signs and the approvals necessary to build a third sign.
The Abraham Joshua Heschel School sold its 16,481-square-foot middle school property at 314 West 91st Street, between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive, to the Ideal School of Manhattan for $11.75 million. The Ideal School of Manhattan, an independent K-8th grade school, is currently based at 4 West 76th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West. It will be moving out of those premises permanently once the 91st Street location becomes available.
Broad Street Development has agreed to pay $33 million to acquire two historic Greenwich Village buildings from the non-profit Children's Aid Society, and has plans to build a 60,000-square-foot luxury condominium project on the site. Broad Street said it will begin work next summer, and plans to incorporate one of the Calvert Vaux-designed buildings into the project and use part of the space for a community facility.
Sherwood Equities has acquired a West Side development site where Extell Development had once planned to build a 60-story hotel and residential tower for more than $42 million. The site, at 356 10th Avenue, near the Related Companies' planned Hudson Yards development, was assembled for at least $44 million by Extell, but after its financing partner backed out of the project, the company handed it back to lender Barclays Capital Real Estate last year in a deed in lieu of foreclosure.
Allied Irish Banks has struck a deal to sell a portfolio worth around $1 billion in U.S. commercial mortgages to Blackstone Group and Wells Fargo & Co., in a move to take advantage of a U.S. commercial property recovery and reduce their holdings of troubled loans. The portfolio represents more than 50 percent of the bank's U.S. real estate holdings and includes pieces of loans in trophy buildings such as the MetLife building at 200 Park Avenue, and the Grand Del Mar resort in San Diego. The deal was for roughly 7 percent to 15 percent discount off the face value of the loans. Blackstone is paying mid-$80s on the dollar for around half of the portfolio and Wells Fargo is paying in the low-$90s for the other half. The assets going to Wells Fargo are less distressed. Allied Irish has negotiated a higher price than other recent deals as competition for distressed real estate assets skyrockets.
NYC Buildings For Sale
Two new East Harlem condominiums will hit the auction block next month as their anxious developers forego the traditional brokerage route and instead attempt to unload the entirety of their inventory in one shot. In all, 34 units once listed for a combined $20 million will go up for sale, with eight of those units being sold with no minimum bid. The first of the two buildings, the 12-unit Winfield condo, is located a 231 East 111th Street and was developed by Lou Foundos. Prices had ranged from $325,000 to $650,000 per unit. The second property, at 178 East 117th Street, has been dubbed the Alto by developer Moshe Gold of G&L Realty.Libet Johnson, heiress to the Johnson & Johnson fortune and the sister of Jets owner Woody Johnson, has been exposed as the buyer of this year's priciest residential sale to date, the Vanderbilt Mansion at 16 East 69th Street, for which she has just handed over upwards of $48 million. That price is also the highest paid for a Manhattan townhouse since the fall of Lehman Brothers in 2008. Johnson is a close friend of seller and fellow heiress Sloan Lindemann Barnett and her husband, beauty.com founder Roger Barnett.
Aby Rosen's RFR Holding is looking to unload a 49 percent stake in the landmark Seagram Building at more than $2,000 per square foot. The record price per square foot for an office building was set at $1,585 in 2007 with the sale of 450 Park Avenue, and while prices have rebounded somewhat since the real estate crash, such a price is untested in today's market. If you want to test the strength of the market, it's certainly the building with which to do it.
The prewar office tower at 315 Park Avenue South is up for grabs with owner Craig Nassi seeking either a buyer or a joint venture partner to recapitalize the property for roughly $350 million. Nassi, of BCN Development, is looking forat around $1,000 per square foot.
A 20,000-square-foot corner at 400 Park Avenue South at 28th Street, which can support a 420,000-square-foot project is for sale. The site was assembled by developers A & R Kalimian, who were granted approval from the New York City Department of Planning. After clearing most of the site, the developers have now opted to sell.
