This Week's N.Y. Deal Sheet
This week, two tech firms secured major Midtown expansions, the sale of a Downtown office building closed and a stalled hotel scored a construction loan.
TOP LEASES
LinkedIn is adding nearly 189K SF to its lease at the Empire State Building to bring its total footprint to almost 502K SF, The New York Post reports. Some of that space was previously leased by beauty company Coty. Rents in the deal were $78 per SF, brokered by CBRE’s Sacha Zarba, Lauren Crowley Corrinet and Chris Hogan on behalf of LinkedIn. Empire State Realty Trust, which owns the iconic skyscraper, was represented in-house by Ryan Kass and Shanae Ursini.
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Adobe is quadrupling its office space in Times Square, adding 82K SF to the lease it has at 1540 Broadway. The software firm renewed for 27K SF on the 17th floor and will expand to the 18th, 19th and 20th floors at the skyscraper. Adobe’s total footprint will now be 109K SF in the Edge Fund Advisors-owned building. The deal is for 10 years and rents were not disclosed. CBRE’s Mary Ann Tighe, Howard Fiddle, Eric Deutsch, Christie Harle, Jason Pollen and Benjamin Joseph brokered the deal for Edge, while Colliers International’s Brian Given, Sheena Gohil, Carter Beim, Kellam Nelson, Jack Senske and Frank Wallach represented Adobe.
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Project Worldwide, a group of advertising and marketing agencies, is taking 27K SF at 412 West 15th St., The New York Post reports. Rents in the deal were more than $100 per SF, and the company is moving from NoMad. Matthew Fisher and Yarden Drimmer of Cushman & Wakefield acted for the tenant. CBRE’s Neil King brokered the lease for owners Rockpoint Group and Highgate Holdings.
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Plaid, a tech startup, is taking 30K SF at the Puck Building at 295 Lafayette St., Commercial Observer reports. The building is owned by Kushner Cos., and asking rents were $125 per SF. Dartmouth Co.’s Fritz Kemerling brokered the deal for the landlord. JLL’s Steven Rotter represented the tenant, which is moving to the border of SoHo and NoHo — Houston Street.
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Major League Baseball has agreed to open a 17K SF flagship retail store at 1271 Sixth Ave., three years after the league agreed to move its headquarters to the building. Marketing and hospitality group Legends, co-owned by the Yankees and the NFL's Dallas Cowboys, is partnering with the league on its first permanent retail space, overseeing design and construction. MLB's headquarters spans 400K SF on the upper floors of the building, which is owned by the Rockefeller Group.
TOP SALES
GFP Real Estate and the Northwind Group closed on their $310M purchase of 7 Hanover Square this week, according to PincusCo. The deal was announced in January last year. Guardian Life Insurance Co. had leased the entire office portion of the 27-story, 905K SF building since at least 1998, when its then-owners, Milstein Properties, Weiler Arnow Management Co. and The Swig Co., offered the company a $147M purchase option as part of the lease. Guardian exercised that option in mid-2017 for the purpose of selling the building. The new owners are running a redevelopment of the property, and branding it as 100 Pearl St. Square Mile Capital Management has loaned $430M to GFP and Northwind.
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Workable City Development and Rabina Properties paid $33M to buy 239 Banker St., a rental complex in Greenpoint, The Real Deal reports. The property, once a warehouse, was sold by an entity with Bruman Realty’s Joseph Brunner listed as the manager, per TRD. There have been multiple instances of building violations at the property, and previous owners had used a zoning loophole to convert the building to apartments, according to a New York Times report from seven years ago.
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Columbia University paid $33.6M to the Sprayregen family for an industrial building at 3300 Broadway, public records show. The deed was signed by Gerald Sprayregen. The sale is part of Columbia’s Manhattanville expansion, Columbia Spectator reports. It comes after Gerald’s now-deceased son, Nick, tried to stop the university acquiring his property at 3261 Broadway, although the courts ultimately ruled in Columbia’s favor, per Crain’s New York Business.
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Global Holdings Management Group bought an apartment building at 10 East 29th St., from the Los Angeles County Employees’ Retirement Association, Commercial Observer reports. The sale price was said to be close to $400M, and the building, known as the Instrata Nomad, features 392 market-rate units. Eastdil Secured arranged the deal, per CO. It last sold in 2012 for $300M, according to property records.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
South Korea’s Hana Financial Investment is providing a $135M construction loan to the developers planning a hotel at 456 Greenwich St. The partnership behind the project is CBCS Washington Street L.P., with Westchester-based Caspi Development taking the lead on the development and serving as a co-general partner. The partnership had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March, per a release, and this loan is part of the bankruptcy court’s reorganization. VI Development Group’s Terence Park arranged the financing.
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Wells Fargo provided $195M to the Rochdale Village co-op, Commercial Observer reports. The 20-story, resident-owned building is on a 12-acre campus surrounded by Baisley Boulevard, Guy R Brewer Boulevard, Bedell Street and 137th Avenue in Queens. Wells Fargo loaned $130M on the property in 2014, per CO.
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Atlantic Development Group locked down $119M in the form of two fixed-rate, long-term Fannie Mae loans for two Manhattan residential properties, according to JLL, which originated and arranged the financing. The loan for 33 West End Apartments, at 33 West End Ave., was $80M and the loan for Port 10 Apartments, at 303 10th Ave., was $39M. The loans will be serviced by JLL Multifamily, per a release.
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MUFG Union Bank loaned SL Green $75M for four office condominium parcels at 2 Herald Square, PincusCo reports. The bank had previously loaned $150M on the property, of which SL Green bought the leasehold in May last year. This is a new debt, secured by the leasehold, per the publication.
