This Week's N.Y. Deal Sheet
The end of October brought some big leases and financing deals to New York City's commercial real estate market, although the current economic climate is leading to uncertainty and dampening sales.
TOP LEASES
The Stahl Organization’s 277 Park Ave. has signed six new leases totaling 269K SF, the landlord announced. M&T Bank agreed to take 93K SF on floors 24 through 27, relocating its current regional headquarters from 350 Park Ave. Visa expanded its penthouse lease to take up 50K SF, while global private markets firm Stepstone Group has signed for 50K SF on the 44th and 45th floors. Private equity firm Intermediate Capital Group will take 40K SF on the 40th and 41st floors as an expansion from its current office at 600 Lexington Ave. Personal banking financial solutions firm National Australia Bank has signed a 24K SF relocation deal to move from 235 Park Ave., while long-term tenant Imperial Capital, a multinational investment bank, has extended its 12K SF, 20th-floor lease.
The 15-story building’s leasing frenzy follows a recent capital improvement program on the 1960s-era building scheduled to wrap up at the end of this year, which includes a new lobby, green space and a new Lexington Avenue entrance. Cushman & Wakefield’s Mark P. Boisi, Bryan Boisi and Gordon Hough repped ownership in all the deals, with legal representation from Joshua Stein and Lauren Silk of Joshua Stein PLLC.
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Target has signed a 139K SF lease at Urban Edge Properties' Bruckner Commons shopping center. The location, at the intersection of the Bruckner Expressway and White Plains Road, serves over 700,000 people within 3 miles and 80,000 vehicles every day, according to a release. The property, a 1970s-era mall, is also home to ShopRite, Marshalls, Burlington and Five Below outposts. Target plans to open the location, in the former Kmart space, in 2025.
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Eataly will open its third New York City outpost at 200 Lafayette St., the New York Post reports. Eataly secured a multimillion-dollar tenant improvement package in the deal from landlord Brookfield Properties, with asking rents at $2.6M per year. The grocery store and food hall plans to open on the ground floor of the seven-story SoHo property in mid-2023. Brookfield had in-house representation from Jason Maurer as well as Cushman & Wakefield’s Michael O’Neill, Alan Schmerzler, Jason Greenstone, Steven Soutendijk and Taylor Reynolds of Cushman & Wakefield. Eataly was represented by CBRE’s Joel Stephen.
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The mystery tenant in the largest industrial deal of the year is Amazon, The Real Deal reported. The 569K SF lease at 2505 Bruckner Blvd., first reported by Bisnow, takes up more than half of the 1M SF logistics center speculatively developed in the Bronx. The facility is next to five of the region’s busiest highways, including the Cross-Bronx Expressway, the Bruckner Expressway and Hutchinson River Parkway. A JLL team led by Rob Kossar and Leslie Lanne served as the leasing agents. Amazon signed for just over half of the multistory property owned by Innovo Property Group and Square Mile Capital, despite its well-documented pullback in its industrial network. It walked away from a 116K SF warehouse in Hunts Point that was its first last-mile delivery center in the Bronx in September, saying in a statement that its delivery service provider at the center didn't meet its operating and safety standards.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
Senlac Ridge Partners and The William Macklowe Co. have scored $142.9M in construction financing from Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, according to a release. The loan will go toward a mixed-use development at 120 Fifth Ave. in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood, a site Macklowe and Senlac Ridge acquired in 2020. The development will feature two buildings totaling 180 residential units, 25% of which would be affordable, in addition to 67K SF of retail space, parking and a fitness center. CVS and Lidl have already signed long-term leases for 35K SF of the property’s retail space. Cushman & Wakefield’s Equity, Debt & Structured Finance team of Gideon Gil and Lauren Kaufman represented the borrowers in the transaction.
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Extell Development nabbed a three-year, $425M construction loan from a consortium of investors led by InterVest Capital Partners to develop a 30-story medical office facility at 1520 First Ave., according to a press release. Other partners in the financing consortium were Pacific Western Bank, Rexmark and Harbor Group International, which provided a $90M senior mezzanine loan. The loan includes two- and one-year extension options. The develop on Manhattan’s Upper East Side is already partially pre-leased to the Hospital for Special Surgery.
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Deutsche Bank has agreed to lend A&E Real Estate $55M toward its 126-unit, six-story multifamily property at 132-57 Sanford Ave. in Queens, Commercial Observer reported. The complex is part of a 428-unit, almost 389K SF multifamily portfolio in Queens purchased by A&E in 2018 for $127.5M. The other properties in the portfolio are 41-40 Denman St., 132-25 Maple Ave., 132-48 41st Road, 132-45 Maple Ave. and 132-61 Sanford Ave. The Elmhurst asset in the portfolio is at 41-40 Denman St.
TOP SALES
Bentley Zhao’s New Empire Corp has closed on two lots in Brooklyn — 757-767 Flatbush Ave. and 21 Lenox Road — for $142.9M, according to a release. The neighboring lots total almost 38K SF, which the developer plans to turn into as many as 150 one- and two-bedroom condos over ground-floor retail space on Flatbush Avenue. New Empire plans to demolish the existing single-story buildings on the site for its mixed-use development.
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Acme Hall, at 435 Ninth St. in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood, has changed hands for $11M, according to a release. Jackson Group Acquisitions LLC is the buyer, while 435 Ninth LLC is the seller, according to property records filed with the city. Jackson Group Acquisitions is a privately owned investment company founded in 2007, according to its website, that focuses on acquiring undervalued commercial properties that have potential for repurposing. Acme Hall, originally built in 1890, is a four-story building featuring three ground-floor retail units and one office unit on its upper floors, in addition to 130 feet of street frontage and a ballroom. Cushman & Wakefield’s Dan O’Brien, Jonathan Squires, Caroline Hodes and Josh Neustadter represented the seller in the transaction, according to a release.
