This Week's N.Y. Deal Sheet
This week in New York City real estate, a wellness brand locked down a big lease at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a Williamsburg development site escaped a foreclosure auction and an affordable housing development scored construction financing.
TOP LEASES
Care/of, a vitamin and wellness brand, is taking 79K SF at Liberty Bklyn, a 1.3M SF building at 850 Third Ave. in Sunset Park that is owned by Madison Capital and Salmar Properties. The tenant is moving in midyear, and will take both office and industrial space on the sixth floor. Care/of was represented by JLL’s James Ferrigno, while Pinnacle Realty’s David Junik, Mark Caso, Steve Nadel and Nechama Liberow represented the property owners.
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Financial services company Panagram Structured Asset Management inked a deal for 15K SF at EQ Office’s 65 East 55th St., Commercial Observer reports. At the same time, Quilvest Capital Partners leased 16K SF in the building. Asking rents were above $100 per SF in the deals, with EQ Office’s Scott Silverstein representing the landlord in-house alongside Newmark‘s Brent Ozarowski. JLL’s Daniel Posy and Peter Michailidis arranged the lease for Quilvest. Posy, with Ian Lipman, brokered the deal for Panagram.
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Interior design firm Pembrooke & Ives locked down 15K SF at Kaufman Organization's 519 Eighth Ave. The landlord also signed the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs to more than 6K on the 24th floor. Sam Stein and Michael Heaner represented Kaufman in-house in the deals. Dennis Someck of Lee and Associates represented Pembrooke & Ives. Jonathan Stravitz of SVN BIOC represented the Department of Veteran Affairs.
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Three companies locked down leases across 30K SF at Savanna’s 521 Fifth Ave., the landlord announced. Teza Technologies is taking 8,600 SF on the 22nd floor in a deal arranged by Newmark’s Matthew Lorberbaum and Cooper Weisman on the tenant side. Arevon Energy leased 6,700 on the 34th floor, with Savills’ Christina Bicks arranging the deal. Berkadia, which already had space in the building, leased the whole 16th floor in a 15K SF lease and extension, arranged by JLL’s Clark Finney and Andrew Coe. CBRE’s Peter Turchin, David Hollander, Tim Freydberg and Ben Joseph represented the landlord in the deals.
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Men’s athleisure brand Ten Thousand inked a deal for 8,500 on the 22nd floor of 61 Broadway, owned by RXR. Rents in the four-year, four-month deal were $60 per SF. Ten Thousand, which is moving offices from Midtown South, was represented by Nomad Group’s William Janetschek and Matthew DeRose. Newmark’s Hal Stein, Ben Shapiro, David Malawer, Todd Straci and Andrew Duffy brokered the deal for RXR, alongside in-house agents Daniel Birney and Evin Blatt.
TOP SALES
Bentley Zhao’s real estate firm, New Empire, dropped $26M on 24-01 Queens Plaza North in Long Island City. The seller was The Ciampa Organization, per Crain’s New York Business. Zhao is now planning to build 100 apartments on the 117K SF lot.
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A retail condo at 90 Greene St. has traded hands, with Acadia Realty Trust paying Oaktree Capital Management $39.4M, PincusCo reports. The condo spans 3,200 SF and the price works out to be $12,317 per SF. Oaktree took over the property from Meadow Partners last September.
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Loketch Group, the Joyland Group and Meral Property Group have joined together to buy a Williamsburg development site from now-bankrupt co-living company The Collective. The property at 555 Broadway sold for $54M, The Real Deal reports. The deal means the site won’t be foreclosed upon, and it will generate the cash to pay a $49M loan on the property that is owed to Gamma Real Estate. Scale Lending, the debt arm of Slate Property Group, provided $137M to the investors for the purchase, per TRD.
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JAM Real Estate Partners paid the estate of Mary D. Grell $19M for four buildings in Yorkville, PincusCo reports. The properties are all walk-ups on East 89th Street, spanning a total of nearly 35K SF. JAM, based on Madison Avenue, was founded in 2017 by Jared and Steven Pinchasick, according to its website.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
Scale Lending has provided $55M in construction financing to Hope Street Capital for 959 Sterling Place in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Midtown South-based opportunistic investor Hope Street is redeveloping the property into 158 units, 48 of which will be set aside as affordable housing under the Affordable New York program.
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The owners of the Beekman Hotel in the Financial District scored $195M for refinancing. Bank OZK provided a $130M senior loan to an affiliate of GFI Capital Resources, which also secured $65M in subordinate financing from bond investors on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The debt proceeds will go toward retiring previous debt and building up reserves for the highly rated hotel, per a release from GFI, which acquired the property in 2012.
