Manhattan Buildings sold
Real estate investor Robert Gans bought the closed Scores West building at 533-535 West 27th Street for $9.58 million. The 10,000-square-foot venue closed when its license was revoked. The asking price for the building, between 10th and 11th avenues, was to be around $40 million.The New York Times Company and W. P. Carey & Co., an investment management company, entered into a $225 million sale-leaseback transaction for space at the Times' Manhattan headquarters. The sale-leaseback involves 750,000 square feet over 21 floors of the 52-story building on Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st streets. The lease extends for 15 years, with an option for the Times Company to repurchase the space for $250 million in the 10th year of the lease. The company will pay $24 million in rent the first year and more in subsequent years, and will use the proceeds from the sale to pay down debt.
CB Richard Ellis Investors' Strategic Partners U.S. Value 5 Fund bought the office condominium portion for $355 million, or $392 per foot, from Deutsche Bank, which had taken the property back from Macklowe. The 905,533-square-foot office condo has a vacancy rate of 22 percent, much of that on the top six floors which are unoccupied.
Brack Capital Real Estate sold a newly opened Midtown South hotel to RLJ Development for $121.2 million. The sale of the 298-room Hilton Garden Inn at 63 West 35th Street near Herald Square, between Fifth and Sixth avenues. The Amsterdam-based Brack Capital bought the original site, a six-floor parking garage, for $31 million and developed the 31-story hotel.
Hotel developer the Lam Group sold a limited-service, 33-story Garment District hotel located at 330 West 40th Street for $99.5 million. The purchaser of the Fairfield Inn New York Manhattan/Times Square South was Los Angeles-based Gehr Development, a division of Gehr Enterprises, a diversified business that includes manufacturing, distribution and commercial real estate. It was the firm's first purchase in New York City, said David Lifschitz, CFO and an executive vice president at Gehr.
New York Buildings For Sale
American International Group's 66-story headquarters at 70 Pine Street is being marketed for $100 million, less than a third of what the building would have sold for before the market tanked. One buyer may be Service Employees International Union's Local 32 BJ, which represents office and apartment building porters and doormen.Hotel developer Sam Chang has filed plans to demolish four buildings at the corner of Delancey and Suffolk streets on the Lower East Side for a Holiday Inn hotel. Chang's McSam Hotel Group applied for the permits for the demolition of the buildings at 148-154 Delancey Street.
General Growth Properties has received offers of nearly $400 million for some of its properties, including New York City's South Street Seaport. The mall owner faces bankruptcy and put the South Street Seaport property, along with Boston's Faneuil Hall and the Harborplace & the Gallery in Baltimore, on the market. The company received more than 10 bids and has not yet decided whether to sell the properties together or individually. The company has $1.18 billion in overdue debt.
