Rudin Offloading FiDi Tower It's Owned For 64 Years For $160M
Rudin has found a buyer at a lower-than-expected price for an office tower the family developed six decades ago and has held ever since.
Rudin has reached a deal to sell 80 Pine St., a 1.2M SF Financial District office building, to Brooklyn-based Bushburg for $160M, The Real Deal first reported. The sale price is for roughly $40M less than Rudin had hoped to sell the building for when it was placed on the market in the fall.
The building is roughly 50% leased, having struggled to replace insurance giant AIG, which vacated an 800K SF lease in a move to Midtown in 2021. It has secured some leases in recent years after having nearly 950K SF available for lease when AIG left, but its future might not be as an office building at all.
The 40-story tower could be a candidate for a residential conversion, TRD reported. It sits near a handful of other office buildings that are similarly decades old, struggling to find tenants and could have more value as apartment buildings.
GFP Real Estate and Metro Loft are undertaking the largest office-to-residential conversion at 25 Water St., and GFP is also eyeing a conversion of 222 Broadway. Rudin sold a majority stake in the office building at 55 Broad St. last year and is participating in the conversion to residential with developers Silverstein Properties and Metro Loft Management.
Rudin Chairman Bill Rudin told Bisnow last year he saw that project as the firm's chance to gauge the viability of converting office buildings, and he left the door open for the company to do more of those projects in the future, citing its history of developing ground-up multifamily buildings.
“We have residential experience, and we're very proud of our experience, but this is a different type of product," Rudin said on the Bisnow Reports podcast in September. “Conversion is a different animal, and I think that's one of the reasons why we have the seat at the table to understand and see what it is to undertake these types of projects, and who knows what happens down the road.”
A Rudin spokesperson declined to comment on the 80 Pine sale, and Bushburg didn't immediately respond to Bisnow's request for comment.
More sales like 80 Pine could be coming down the pike after New York passed its annual budget that included tax incentives for developers turning commercial buildings into housing.
The CEO of SL Green, which is eyeing a conversion of 750 Third Ave. in Midtown, said the city could see up to 40M SF of offices converted, most of which would happen quickly, as the state program's benefits reduce after 2026.
“Imagine dozens of buildings converting, being taken offline, tenants being relocated out,” SL Green's Marc Holliday said on an earnings call last week.
