Chinese Real Estate Firm Snatches Up Two NYC Properties for $390M
Despite the recent stock market turmoil and yuan devaluation, Beijing-based real estate company Oceanwide Holdings Group has purchased two Manhattan properties—80 South St and 163 Front St—from the Howard Hughes Corp for $390M. The properties—adjacent to the South Street Seaport (pictured), which Howard Hughes purchased last year—will be used to redevelop an 800k SF mixed-used tower. Oceanwide Holdings, led by chairman Lu Zhiqiang, has been purchasing properties all over the US for the last few years, including a $296M development site in San Francisco, where the company plans to build a 910 foot, 60-story office building designed by Norman Foster, the Inquirer reports. Oceanwide’s massive purchases eases concerns of a slow economic recovery and slower flow of Chinese investments to NYC and other cities in China’s top three target real estate markets (the US, UK and Australia). [INQ]
