Major Developments:
Red Apple Real Estate obtained a $57 million construction financing for a 12-story mixed-use project in Chelsea at 280 Eighth Avenue. The 100,000 square-foot building will include 104 residential units, a community space and ground-floor retail.Blackstone signed a deal to expand its headquarters at Rudin's 345 Park Avenue for over 1 million SF. Ares Management expanded its headquarters at 245 Park by more than 130,000 SF to 307,000 SF and JPMorgan Chase reached a deal, in a joint venture with Hines, to acquire 250 Park for more than $300 million.
JPMorgan construction crews are building the bank's new 1,388-foot supertall headquarters at 270 Park Avenue. The 60-story skyscraper is expected to be completed in 2025 and will deliver 2.5 million SF of office space, enough for 15,000 employees.
Citadel, Vornado Realty Trust and Rudin have planned a 1.8 million SF office tower at 350 Park Avenue. Griffin's companies plan to occupy more than 800,000 SF in the 62-story building.
Douglaston Development and Ares Management secured a $500 million in CMBS refinancing of 3eleven, a 60-story tower in Hudson Yards.
Related Companies and Wynn Resorts are having resistance that may threaten their High Line casino project from The West Side’s Assembly members Tony Simone and Deborah Glick, both as well as Friends of the High Line, have been rallying support to oppose the plans.
There are three downstate casino licenses open for applications in the New York City area. State gaming regulators are expected to award the licenses by the end of next year, each with a minimum state licensing fee of $500 million.
A new bill aims to crack down on safety and sanitation at New York City hotels by requiring hotel operators to obtain licenses. The Hotel industry assailed it as a back-door attempt at unionization. New York is one of the few cities where hotels are completely unregulated and unlicensed.
RXR is exploring a partial conversion of the 1.4 million SF landmark building located at 230 Park Avenue following a default on the $670 million loan that matured December 8th. RXR was provided a 90-day forbearance to further explore conversion potential of the 34-story office building at 230 Park Avenue. The building was 84% leased.
Ikea is renting retail space at 570 Fifth Avenue. Ingka Investments is partnering with Extell Development. Ingka Investment will own 80,000 square feet of retail space in the tower and a one-third stake in the remainder of the building, in addition to preferred equity. The new supertall development will be a 78-story glass-encased skyscraper with more than 1 million square feet. The building plans include residences, Class A office space, and retail space on the ground floor.
WeWork is turning a 15,000 RSF floor into a work lounge for the entire building at 575 Lexington Avenue for WeWork members.
Among the major deals signed are Bain & Co.’s 235,000-square-foot relocation to 22 Vanderbilt, Covington & Burlington’s 235,000-square-foot commitment at 30 Hudson Yards and Tradeweb Markets' 75,000-square-foot relocation to 245 Park Avenue.
All were commitments to midtown Manhattan buildings that have been recently built or renovated. 30 Hudson Yards was built in 2019, while 22 Vanderbilt completed renovations this year and 245 Park Avenue had renovations completed in 2017.
With all transactions reported asking rents above $100 per square foot, a notable increase compared with the overall Manhattan average asking rent of $72 per square foot.
If the City of Yes legislation is approved it would lift restrictions to make it easier to convert older office buildings and other nonresidential buildings to housing.
Developers of properties south of 96th Street in Manhattan can be exempt from the vast majority of their property taxes if they convert offices to housing and reserve a portion of the new units as affordable.
Office-to-residential plans in the Financial District amounted to 3,000 residential units. 219-235 E. 42nd Street where David Werner and Nathan Berman converted, turning 973,000 SF of former Pfizer headquarters space into 1,500 apartments.
