This Week's N.Y. Deal Sheet
This week, Midtown's Grace Building fully leased up, a land site on Staten Island sold and a developer scored financing to turn an Upper West Side hotel into housing.
TOP LEASES
Fosun Property Holdings reached a deal for law firm Carter, Ledyard & Milburn LLP to take 36K SF at 28 Liberty St., the landlord announced. The firm agreed to take the whole 41st floor when it leaves its current office at 2 Wall St. JLL’s Kenneth Siegel and John Wheeler represented the tenant, while Fosun was represented in-house by Isabella Chen alongside JLL’s Peter Riguardi, Mitchell Konsker, Daniel Turkewitz, Michael Berman and Eliza Gordon. Fosun acquired the building in 2013 when it was named One Chase Manhattan Plaza, and after rebranding it as 28 Liberty when it had nearly 1M SF of vacancy, it is now over 95% leased.
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Brookfield Properties and the Swig Cos. signed a swath of office deals at the Grace Building, with five tenants leasing a combined 165K SF. Brunswick Group inked a lease for just over 60K SF on the 24th and 25th floors, while Antin Infrastructure Partners leased 32K SF on the 20th floor. Vinson & Elkins expanded its lease to 16,690 on the 30th floor and EQT Partners expanded to 11,600 on the 16th floor. Arch Insurance Co. leased nearly 45K SF. Ken Rapp, Peter Turchin, Christie Harle, Cara Chayet and Alex Benisatto of CBRE arranged the deals for Brookfield.
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Indoor playground company Kidz Club inked a lease with Omni NY to take 33K SF at Archer Green at 92-23 168th St. in Jamaica, Queens. The deal is for 20 years, The Real Deal reports, with the tenant paying $25 per SF. The mixed-use development has some 70K SF retail space in total, as well as 387 affordable units. Booth Capital’s Greg Parassio represented both sides of the deal.
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Digital media company Roku locked down 240K SF at 5 Times Square, the New York Post reported this month. The lease spans the top eight floors of the RXR Realty-owned building. Asking rent in the building is said to be $90 per SF, but The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that RXR is paying Roku more than $30M to cover construction and is offering up to two years of free rent. Roku is leaving 414 West 41st St., where it leases 70K SF.
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Western Alliance Bank and fund manager Cliffwater leased a combined 25K SF at 477 Madison Ave., property owner RFR Realty announced. Asking rents were $95 per SF, with Western Alliance Bank taking 12,437 SF across the entire 17th floor and Cliffwater leasing 12,310 SF across the full 16th floor. Hughes Marino’s Tucker Hughes arranged Western Alliance Bank’s 10-year deal, and Cliffwater was represented by Savills’ Jarod Stern. Newmark’s David Falk, Peter Shimkin, Daniel Levine and Eric Cagner represented RFR in the deals.
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Financial services firm CLSA locked down 17K SF at the Durst Organization’s 1155 Sixth Ave., where it will move from 1301 Sixth Ave., Durst announced. CLSA was represented by Clyde Reetz of CBRE. Durst was represented in-house by Tom Bow, Rocco Romeo and Tanya Grimaldo. The lease runs for 10 years.
TOP SALES
BFC Partners has bought the development site at 475 Bay St. on Staten Island, where it plans to build 269 residential units, which the developer says will be 100% affordable. The development is expected to cost $151M and a $99.8M first mortgage came from the New York State Housing Finance Agency. Once complete, the mixed-use development will span 250K SF.
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Black Spruce Management bought a four-building residential complex in Queens from The Musso Group for $87.2M, The Real Deal reports. The properties, which together span 383 units across 382K SF, are at 80-08 and 81-10 135th St. and 80-09 and 81-09 134th St., per the publication.
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RedSky Capital bought 143 Roebling St. in Williamsburg for $82.7M, PincusCo reports. Calmwater Capital was the seller of the 49-unit residential building in a deal that closed Dec. 23.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
Brookfield Properties scored $330M to refinance one of the residential buildings at Greenpoint landing, Commercial Observer reports. MF1 provided the funding for Two Blue Slip, retiring the previous $217M construction loan provided in 2018. CBRE’s Tom Traynor, James Millon, Mark Finan and P.J. Finley arranged the financing. Two Blue Slip was finished in early 2020, and it has 421 units, 30% of which are affordable.
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Emmut Properties locked down an $84M loan from Franklin BSP Realty Trust Inc., a publicly traded REIT, per a release from Berkadia, which arranged the financing. The senior stretch financing is for Emmut’s acquisition of the 126-room Excelsior Hotel, which the company is converting to multifamily. Chinmay Bhatt, Noam Franklin and Cody Kirkpatrick of Berkadia JV Equity & Structured Capital secured the funding, which includes a $74M senior bridge loan and a $10M mezzanine loan.
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Deutsche Bank provided $340M to Hackman Capital Partners to buy Kaufman Astoria Studios, PincusCo reports. Hackman joined with Square Mile Capital to buy the film complex at 34-12 36th St., back in November. The loan closed around the same time, but was only recorded in records Jan. 14. The studio — which includes 500K SF of production space, with 11 soundstages and 325K SF of office — sold for $600M, per PincusCo.
