New York City Buildings sold
Brack Capital Real Estate USA has sold the retail portion of its residential development at 15 Union Square West in New York City to the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio, or STRS, for $57.88 million. The retail space consists of four retail stores on the first, mezzanine and cellar floors of the building, totaling 14,494 square feet. Three of the spaces are currently leased : one to HSBC Bank, one to Lululemon Athletica, and another to Sketchers.Real estate investment trust SL Green has acquired the remaining ownership interest in 521 Fifth Avenue, a 39-story office building with ground-floor retail space on the corner of 43rd Street. SL Green picked up the remaining 49.9 percent interest from City Investment Fund, with whom SL Green had purchased the 490,000-square-foot building in 2006. Although it was not immediately clear what SL Green paid for the remaining interest.
The buyer of the 254,000-square-foot office condominium atop Barneys New York at 660 Madison Avenue was an investment entity controlled by Brazilian billionaire Joseph Safra. At $285 million, or $1,100 per square foot, the transaction was the priciest for a New York City office building on a per-square-foot basis last year.
The Apthorp's 14,875-square-foot retail condominium is in contract for $37 million. The retail space, located in the residential building's ground floor on Broadway between 78th and 79th streets, contains four storefronts. Current tenants include JPMorgan Chase and the Apthorp Pharmacy. The other two units, which are 1,560 square feet and 2,460 square feet, will be available for rent, which said it expects the sale to close early next month.
NYC Buildings For Sale
Ziel Feldman's HFZ Capital Group is trying to flip the 12,000-square-foot Bryant Park development parcel that was once to become the site of city's first luxury green hotel. HFZ took title to the mortgage and deed to property for $46 million in June, and has just put it back on the market for $85 million. The site is currently a parking lot with 189,000 square feet of development rights. The original plans for the site called for a 31-story hotel and condominium tower designed by Morris Adjmi.More than 50 units in two properties will go on the auction block on February 13th, with prices at more than 66 percent off their original price. For New Amsterdam Condominiums, a new Washington Heights condo at 177th Street and Amsterdam, prices will start at $125,000 for one-bedroom apartments and go as high as $300,000 for a three-bedroom penthouse. Later in the day, East River Tower, a building near the Long Island City-Astoria border, will go on the block with 25 apartments up for auction.
Host Hotels & Resorts, the real estate investment trust that owns the Four Seasons in Philadelphia, the St. Regis in Houston and 102 other luxury properties, has struck a deal to buy the New York Helmsley Hotel for between $310 million and $315 million. The deal, which works out to at least $401,000 per room, is the latest in a slow-moving liquidation process of the estate of Leona Helmsley, who died in 2007.
The distressed sale of the unsold apartments in William Beaver House, a 47-story condominium in the Financial District that was just bailed out by the CIM Group, has led to a sharp drop in asking prices and refunds for potential buyers. CIM took control of 209 unsold units at the William Street condo and has now filed an amendment to the offering plan cutting combined asking prices by $91.8 million. CIM also indicated they might rent out some or all of the units.
It is a good time for investors looking to pick up commercial property debt: in addition to the $75 million senior mortgage at 80 Broad Street that just came on the market. A $116 million senior loan at 1140 Sixth Avenue is also about to hit the block. The 22-story building, owned by Laurence Gluck's Stellar Management and Rockpoint Group, is on the corner of West 44th Street and it is likely to draw as much as $600 per square foot.
