Brookfield Seeking Buyers For FiDi’s One New York Plaza

Brookfield Asset Management and China Investment Corp. have put One New York Plaza, their jointly owned $1.4B Financial District tower, on the market.

The 50-year-old property at 1 Water St. spans 2.7M SF and is 93% leased, The Real Deal reports, citing an offering memo. Tenants include Morgan Stanley and Fried Frank, and some 1.4M SF were leased between 2015 and 2020.

Brookfield acquired the property in 2006 as part of its $9B purchase of Trizec Properties. A decade later, it sold a 49% stake to Chinese sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp. and a 16% stake to Boston’s AEW Capital Management. Those sales valued the property at $1.4B. Brookfield, which runs the building while holding onto a 35% stake, has spent $230M on upgrades since 2012.

The property owners scored an $835M loan from Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and BMO Harris Bank in 2020 to refinance the property.

The sale comes as office tenants consider how much space they want to use amid the ongoing evolution of remote work. Leasing has picked up in the city, but occupancy is muted and availability remains high, sitting at over 19% in Manhattan.

The return to office has been slow in the city, too, with New York’s office occupancy less than 38%, according to Kastle data. Still, office sales in the first quarter sharply rebounded from low points in 2021. There were 11 office sales for a total of $3.3B during the first quarter of this year, up from just four sales totaling $88.9M in the first quarter of 2021, per Avison Young.

Major office deals this year have included Google's purchase of St. John's Terminal for $1.97B and Blackstone’s acquisition of a 49% stake in the 67-story One Manhattan West last month, which valued the property at $2.85B.