This Week's NY Deal Sheet
The week started with a blizzard and ended with a financing bang. The ownership group in charge of the office tower at 5 Times Square secured a refinancing for more than $1B. Here are the other big deals we found in New York commercial real estate last week.
TOP LEASES
Publisher W.W. Norton & Co. signed a long-term 95K SF lease renewal at 500 Fifth Ave., a building owned by L&B Realty Advisors. Rents range from $68 to $90/SF. A Savills Studley team led by executive vice president Daniel Horowitz, Jeffrey Peck, Gary Kerper and Roi Shleifer represented W.W. Norton, while a Cushman & Wakefield team of Harry Blair and Sean Sterns represented L&B Realty Advisors.
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Stifel Financial Corp. subleased two floors totaling 46K SF at 277 Park Ave., a building owned by Stahl Organization. The space was previously occupied by Stifel subsidiary Sterne Agee Group. Financial services firm Ladenburg Thalmann took the entire 23K SF 26th floor in a sublease that will start in April and run until January 2021. Luis Pupolo and Alex Furst of Douglas Elliman Commercial represented Ladenburg Thalmann. The Agricultural Bank of China signed a sublease for the 23K SF 24th floor until January 2020. While terms of the subleases were not disclosed, rents in the building average $85/SF. A Cushman & Wakefield team of Mark Weiss, Robert Eisenberg, Scott Shelbourne, Barry Garfinkle and Mikael Nahmias represented Stifel in the deals.
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Target signed a lease with Empire State Realty Trust for a 43K SF store at 112 West 34th St., across the street from the flagship Macy's in Herald's Square. ESRT's Fred Posniak and Shanae Ursini repped the landlord in-house with Cushman & Wakefield's Joanne Podell, Ian Lerner and Mary Clayton. Peter Ripka, Richard Skulnik and Jeffery Howard of Ripco Real Estate represented Target.
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Marketing analytics firm ComScore is expanding its footprint at 7 Penn Plaza, owned by the Feil Organization, by almost 15K SF to nearly 40K SF in a 10-year deal. Asking rent was $65/SF with ComScore set to expand in July. David Turino is the landlord's director of commercial leasing, while Robert Hill and Brian Hay of CBRE represented ComScore.
TOP SALES
The Matsil family sold its three-story, 246K SF warehouse at 48-49 35th St. in Long Island City to Metropolitan Realty Associates, a firm controlled by Joseph Farkas, for $55M. The building is 79% leased, with AirSea Packing, an international shipping company, the largest tenant, occupying 100K SF. Jeff Unger and Neil Dolgin of Kalmon Dolgin represented the Matsil family, while law firm Duval & Stachenfeld represented MRA.
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Richard Scharf's Abro Management purchased two adjacent Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, rental buildings from David Kramer's Hudson Cos. for $47M. The apartment buildings at 1125 Banner Ave. and 2750 East 12th St. have 102 units in total spanning 115K SF. Westwood Realty Associates' Steven Vegh brokered the deal.
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Japanese billionaire Bungo Shimada sold his 14K SF mansion, just steps from Central Park, on 7 East 76th St. for $41.5M to imprisoned Chinese electronics tycoon Huang Guangyu. Sotheby's Stan Ponte and Max Collins represented Shimada in the transaction.
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Marcello Porcelli's LargaVista companies bought a 50K SF warehouse from Leon Kassabian at 30-12 41st Ave. in Long Island City for $27M. CBRE agents Dan Kaplan, Tim Sheehan, Josh Kleinberg and John Reinertsen represented Kassabian.
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An LLC registered to Paul Amit and Jacky Bain sold the new apartment building on 1035 Fulton St. rebranded as 976 Fulton in Bedford-Stuyvesant for $22M to an anonymous LLC.
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Condos at the "Jenga tower" on 56 Leonard St., developed by Hines and the Alexico Group, continue to sell at a brisk pace. The building's newest resident is Swiss Watch International CEO Izac Ben-Shmuel, who purchased a 49th-floor condo for just over $13M. A second penthouse unit sold for almost $22M while a third, 46th-floor condo unit sold to Beleonard LLC for over $11M.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
Scott Rechler's RXR Realty and David Werner refinanced their 5 Times Square office tower with a $1.4B debt package from Morgan Stanley. The debt package includes a $782M senior mortgage carrying a five-year term, a $200M junior mortgage from SL Green and roughly $418M in mezzanine financing.
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Allen Gross's GFI Development Group secured a loan package of $181.3M for the newly completed 287-key Beekman Hotel and connected condo-tower at 5 Beekman St., according to documents filed with the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
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Ormonde Equities secured an $85M refinance loan for its property on 2030 Broadway. Principal Life Insurance Co. provided the debt. Eastern Consolidated's Jonathan Aghravi and Charles Han represented Ormonde.
