News
BISNOW EXCLUSIVE: 520 PARK AVE GOING APARTMENT
September 20, 2012
| The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation was supposed to be one of the Midtown office owners (520 Park Ave) left in the lurch when Transamerica left Midtown for the waterfront. But just like Mama and Bob Marley always said: "Everything's gonna be alright." Apartment conversions are right-sizing the Baltimore City office market now, just as hotel conversions did seven years ago. |
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| MacKenzie Commercial's Jim Grieves, who's speaking at Bisnow'sBaltimore State of Office event tomorrow, tells us he hears the 150k SF former Transamerica back office will be converted to apartments, and Weinberg will stay in as a JV partner. Jim didn't work on it, but he did work on other deals related to Transamerica's relo: MacKenzie repped Chase Brexton in its purchase of Transamerica's 190k SF Monumental Life Building to Chase Brexton. Jim also teamed on Chase Brexton's sale of Chase Brexton's 1001 Cathedral to the always-expanding Agora publisher and has Chase Brexton's 1000 Morton under contract to a non-profit user-buyer. That all adds up to a lot of Midtown office space that could have been sitting vacant. (And you all know what vacant office space leads to: ghosts.) |
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| Elsewhere in that submarket, Class-B office vacancy will keep going down as apartment conversions continue, Jim says. He repped the owners in their sale of 521 St. Paul Place (former Maryland Department of Transportation space that had been vacant for four years) to PMCProperty Group, which is expanding the 55k SF building by two floors and converting it to residential (70 total units, PCMProperty's Steve Bloom told us this afternoon). And he has Carrolton Bank's 344 N Charles St (above) under contract to a company that'll convert the upper floors to 18 apartments. The bank moved its HQ to Columbia but will stay on the first floor as a tenant. Jim says that building was a rough sell until the city eased up on parking requirements for residential buildings. |
