A-Rod Snaps Up His First NYC Multifamily Property

Former Yankees third baseman and tabloid personality Alex Rodriguez has acquired a 21-unit apartment tower in the East Village of Manhattan in partnership with New York real estate mogul and TV personality Barbara Corcoran. 

Corcoran and Rodriguez, who met on the set of ABC’s "Shark Tank" television show, say they will acquire off-market properties in the city's hottest neighborhoods, Real Estate Weekly reports. The partners did not identify the specific property in the East Village deal, however.

The buy is the latest in a long string of real estate deals for the former slugger known as A-Rod, but his first foray into the New York market.

Rodriguez is founder and CEO of A-Rod Corp., whose property holdings are substantial. Its subsidiary, Monument Capital Management, has acquired more than $700M of multifamily assets in 13 states through opportunity funds and strategic joint ventures, while A-Rod Corp.'s Newport Property Construction has developed about 15M SF of real estate assets since its founding, as well as redeveloping other properties.

A-Rod Corp. is also the lead investor in Petros PACE, an Austin-based pioneer in Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy, or C-PACE, financing. C-PACE facilitates the financing of clean energy projects. 

Real estate has been part of Rodriguez's business operations since 2003, when he purchased his first duplex in South Florida at age 28. More recently, the former baseball star said that he believes there is plenty of opportunity to invest in the lower and middle tiers of the multifamily market as value-add plays.

He also thinks highly of the real estate business as a moneymaker, despite twice holding the record for the richest contract in sports history, when he signed with the Texas Rangers for $252M in 2000, then opted out of that contract and signed a $275M deal with the Yankees in 2008.

“Thirteen-thousand apartments later, it has been the greatest business,” Rodriguez told CNBC. “Better than baseball.”