August 2012 New York Buildings For Sale

NYC Buildings For Sale

One of the city’s oldest non-profit organizations has put its Gramercy Park headquarters on the block. The Xavier Society for the Blind will sell the 16,000-square-foot building at 154 East 23rd Street, starting with an asking price of $13 million. The organization is downsizing drastically because its services which provide large print and braille books and periodicals are no longer needed due to technological advances.
Milstein is selling all but two of his 32 Emigrant Bank branches. Apple Bank is buying all of the branches, and their $3.2 billion in assets, except for the one at 5 East 42nd Street, near Fifth Avenue, and another in Ossining, N.Y. Milstein will also retain ownership of two affiliated online banking platforms. Emigrant’s net income fell 42 percent to $50 million last year. In 2007, the bank increased its business loan portfolio and subsequently suffered more than $500 million in losses during the crash in 2008 and 2009. As a result, Milstein, who has owned the bank since 1986, was forced to infuse the bank with $200 million.
One of the largest players in U.S. real estate is prepping to sell its office portfolio. The private-equity firm Blackstone Group’s move to sell its $22 billion worth of office assets may signal the market’s recovery. The exit could come as early as next year. Executives are considering selling the real estate as regional portfolios, or listing it as a real estate investment trust. Blackstone’s office properties span 50 million square feet in more than 100 buildings.
Young & Rubicam has put the Madison Avenue tower where an elevator malfunction killed an employee on the market. The move was expected for months, as the advertising firm prepares to move into Joseph Moinian’s 3 Columbus Circle over the next 18 months. At the time of last December’s tragedy, insiders speculated that the incident would be an obstacle to the sales effort of the building. Another obstacle in the effort to sell the 285 Madison Avenue is that the 550,000-square-foot tower, between East 40th and East 41st streets, will be essentially vacant.

New York Buildings sold

Deutsche Bank is preparing a $400 million construction loan for Extell’s 65-percent-sold, 34-story, 745,000-square-foot International Gem Tower in Midtown, and will spearhead the loan’s syndication. The loan splits comprises of a $300 million senior loan and a $100 in subordinate debt, and lasts for a two-year period. There’s also the option for a one-year extension. Extell planned to move forward with the tower with or without a construction loan
Erez Itzhaki’s Keystone Group is in contract on an office building at 391 Broadway in Tribeca. The firm plans to add a rooftop addition to the five-story property and convert it into a luxury, boutique condominium. Itzhaki, who recently handed control of his eponymous brokerage firm Itzhaki Properties to a new partner to focus solely on his acquisitions and development firm, paid $8.5 million for the property. The building is currently home to several design firms and to Infinity Shoes, which leases the ground floor. While the retail will remain on the ground floor, all of the building’s other leases are set to expire within the next 18 months.
RXR Realty has entered an agreement to purchase the 40-story office tower at 450 Lexington Avenue. The price Istithmar, the owner, will receive for the building is unclear, but the deal would value the building, located between East 44th and East 45th streets, at more than the $600 million Istithmar paid for it in 2006. RXR had previously purchased nearly half of the $600 million in debt on the 910,000-square-foot building.
While his father is busy planning the city’s next tallest residential tower up the avenue, William Macklowe has entered contract to purchase the office tower at 386 Park Avenue South. The sale may net between $110 million and $120 million. The 20-story, 260,000-square-foot building, at East 27th Street, is just 60 percent occupied, but the remaining space wouldn’t be too difficult to fill considering its Midtown South location.
For nearly two years hotel mogul Sam Nazarian has been saying he wants to expand his empire to New York City. He’s finally doing just that in the red-hot area for hotels north of Madison Park at 444 Park Avenue South, on the corner of East 30th Street. Moin Development Corp. purchased the 14-story office building for $45 million and partnered with Nazarian to plant the SLS brand in the city. Together they plan to spend about $40 million to add five floors to the building, convert it into a hotel and open it in the second quarter of next year.
Vornado Realty Trust is in contract to purchase all 33,389 square feet of retail space at 680 Madison Avenue, formerly the Carlton House Hotel, for $280 million. The retail is at the base of a condominium conversion planned by Gary Barnett’s Extell Development and Angelo, Gordon & Co. The deal works out to about $8,235 per square-foot.
Two floors of retail space in a Soho condominium have sold for $11.4 million. Keystone Properties sold the 5,200-square-foot space, at 83 Spring Street, because they received a strong offer and wanted to free up capital for other projects. Keystone, an acquisitions and development firm, acquired 391 Broadway, in Tribeca, earlier this month. The firm plans to build boutique condominiums on that site
The San Francisco-based Walnut Hill Group has purchased the 12-story Chelsea office building at 31 West 27th Street. It was the second purchase by them in Manhattan. In 2011, the company acquired the Holiday Inn Express hotel building at 15 West 45th Street in Times Square, in a joint venture with a minority partner.