Harlem Building Becomes First Individual Property In NYC To Go Public
A Harlem building that once housed a famed jazz club has now become New York City’s first individual property to go public.
A stone’s throw from Marcus Garvey Park, 286 Lenox Ave. went public last week via commercial real estate securities marketplace Lex Markets. The building is now trading with the ticker TESLU, according to a release.
Next to the 125th Street subway station, 286 Lenox Ave. is a 19K SF retail and office building in Harlem with three tenants, including a Wells Fargo branch, the New York Post reports.
Lex Markets co-founder and co-CEO Jesse Daugherty told the Post that 286 Lenox Ave. represented the first time that a New York City building had been securitized and offered to individual investors.
The building’s market cap was at roughly $11M as of Monday, the Post reported, with stocks trading between $241 and $255. However, of the almost 7,200 shares on offer, only 57 had traded.
Lex Markets specializes in turning individual buildings, retail and office spaces into publicly traded stocks. Lex property owners can continue to receive management fees on a property while securitizing a portion of the property to recapitalize equity and taking out cash, while individual investors can trade stocks in properties without being accredited investors.
286 Lenox Ave. is Lex Markets’ second property to complete an IPO, following a parking garage in Portland, Maine, that went public in early March. The Portland garage’s share price followed a similar pattern to 286 Lenox Ave., initially raking in $255 per stock before dipping to approximately $241, the Post reported.
Lex Markets, which raised $15M in a Series A funding round in February, said it plans to take a third property in Seattle public later this year. The company says it currently has over 15,000 users.
286 Lenox Ave. previously served as home to a famed Harlem jazz club, the Lenox Lounge, from the 1940s until 2012, when the Harlem building’s previous owner Ricky Edmonds raised the rent and punted the jazz lounge to another Harlem spot nearby. The building has since undergone renovations and is now owned by Regal Acquisitions LLC.
CORRECTION, APRIL 8, 3 P.M. ET: A previous version of this article misstated the owner of 286 Lenox Ave. This article has been updated.
