This Week's N.Y. Deal Sheet
After the least active quarter for investment sales in New York City since 2007, activity picked up considerably last week, with several large transactions closing.
TOP SALES
Black Spruce Management and Orbach Affordable Housing’s joint venture, GO Partners, has purchased a 300-unit residential tower for $425M, The Real Deal reports. The Solow Building Co. sold the Lenox Hill property, located at 265 East 66th St., as part of its arrangement to sell its 1,766-unit multifamily portfolio to the joint venture. GO Partners decided not to purchase one 179-unit property, but has spent $1.66B on roughly 1,600 units including 265 East 66th St., penciling out at approximately $1M per apartment. Rob Hinckley and Jeff Julien of JLL repped Solow in the Lenox Hill sale.
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New York University closed on the purchase of a 120K SF office building in Greenwich Village for $97.5M, The Real Deal reported. Sand Associates had owned the 400 Lafayette St. property since at least the 1980s, but the building will now go on to serve as swing space for administrative and faculty offices as part of the university’s expanding Greenwich Village campus. NYU’s longer-term plans are to move some of its uses housed in leased spaces as part of a long-term bid to reduce costs.
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Sedesco paid $77.5M for a 13-story office building on Billionaire’s Row, according to a release. The property, an 80K SF property located at 37 West 57th St., was sold by a private family with representation from Hodges Ward Elliott’s Anthony Ledesma, Paul Gillen and Allie Boyan. Sedesco was represented by Augenbaum Realty’s Josh Augenbaum. Sedesco is planning an 1,100-foot tower on the assemblage it has amassed on 57th Street with residential, hotel and commercial space, The Real Deal reported.
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A self-storage site in East Flatbush has sold for $24.8M, Crain’s New York Business reports. 5601 and 5603 Foster Ave. were previously owned by Rahul Gandhi, an entrepreneur who founded a self-storage business and now runs a moving service, according to his LinkedIn profile. Foster Avenue Self Storage Owner LLC purchased the sites.
TOP LEASES
Tech recruiter Levin has signed a 13K SF lease at One World Trade Center, taking part of the 48th floor for a 13-month period, Commercial Observer reported. The firm moved into the nation's tallest building last month, with asking rents at $79 per SF. David Falk, Peter Shimkin, Hal Stein, Jason Greenstein and Nathan Kropp of Newmark handled it for the Durst Organization and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which jointly own the property. Evan Algier and Steven Langton of Cushman & Wakefield represented Levin in the deal.
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PEI Group, a subscriber-focused business intelligence company, has signed a 14K SF lease at RXR’s 530 Fifth Ave. office tower, a 26-story Midtown property first built in 1957, Crain’s New York Business reported. The landlord refreshed the lobby of the 535K SF building in 2019 and still has availability remaining on the sixth, 11th, 14th and 17th floors. Joseph Gervino of Avison Young represented PEI Group in the 10-year lease, while his colleagues John Ryan, Brooks Hauf and Patrick Steffens repped the landlord alongside RXR’s own in-house representation from William Elder, Andrew Ackerman and Walter Rooney.
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Fulfillment center Ship Essential has signed a 20K SF deal inside Madison Capital and Salmar Properties’ Liberty Bkyln, an office-industrial building located at 850 3rd Ave., Commercial Observer reported. Asking rent was $24 per SF for a five-year, three-month lease, which will bring the shipping service to the 1.3M SF Sunset Park complex and place it in the company of Amazon, custom haircare company Prose and wigmaker Ghair. David Junik, Steve Nadel, Mark Caso and Nechama Liberow of Pinnacle Realty represented both the tenant and the landlord in the deal.
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A high fashion pop-up store is soon coming to the Flatiron District, as Janet Mandell — a national chain that rents space to fashion houses for a few days at a time — signed a 5K SF lease at 24-28 West 25th St., Commercial Observer reports. The store will be the third Janet Mandell location when it opens on a yet-unspecified date, following its Chicago and Los Angeles stores. Asking rents were $150 per SF in a deal Cushman & Wakefield's Patrick O’Rourke, Steven Soutendijk brokered on behalf of landlord Savanna. Colliers' Jake Horowitz of Colliers represented the tenant.
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Starbucks signed a 2K SF lease with Extell Development for a new Upper West Side location, according to a release. The coffee chain will set up shop at 2360 Broadway, a luxury condo property on the corner of West 86th Street that has just one remaining retail space available after the deal with Starbucks. Newmark’s Ross Kaplan, Jason Pruger and Harrison Abramowitz repped the landlord alongside Extell’s in-house representative Aaron Cukier, while SCG’s Jenna Heidenberg and David Firestein handled the deal for Starbucks, alongside the coffee chain’s own John Epifanio.
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One block away from Central Park, New Balance is springing into action. The sneaker brand signed a 4K SF lease at the Brodsky Organization’s 210 Columbus Ave. location, where asking rents were not disclosed but the area’s average is $295 per SF, Commercial Observer reported. New Balance’s new neighbors include Allbirds, Lululemon, Madewell and Magnolia Bakery, while the store itself will sit at the bottom of an 11-story apartment building. Joe Mastromonaco, Evan Clements and Colleen Morrissey of Atlantic Retail repped the landlord, while David LaPierre, Joel Stephen and Kristen Crossman repped the tenant.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
Stonehenge NYC, along with its new partner, The Carlyle Group, scored an $80M loan from Mesa West Capital for its acquisition of 408 East 92nd St., a 32-story residential tower on the Upper East Side, Commercial Observer reported. Carlyle was the buyer that signed the deed for the $114M acquisition, according to city property records, and The Real Deal reported that Stonehenge is a partner on the buy. The 194K SF tower, made up of one- and two-bedroom units, was built using the now-expired 421-a tax abatement, and Stonehenge can retain the tax benefit if it ups the percentage of affordable apartments from its previous 20% to 25%. UBS first purchased the property for $94.8M in 2006, with Stonehenge’s price falling short of the $120M to $125M it hoped to collect for the sale. Grant Frankel and Ethan Pond of Eastdil Secured arranged the $80M loan, while their colleagues Gary Phillips, Will Silverman and Daniel Parker arranged the sale.
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Banco Inbursa has extended a $150M construction loan toward Philadelphia-based Arden Group to fund the redevelopment of an Inwood parking garage into a 19-story residential building, Commercial Observer reported. The property, at 4650 Broadway, will bring 222 units of housing to the neighborhood, 30% of which will be reserved as affordable, in addition to 80K SF for a charter school and 38K SF of retail space. Arden bought the property in 2019 and filed plans to demolish the parking garage in 2021. Plans for the property have a completion date of summer 2024, with residential units starting on the fourth floor and a grocery tenant in 15K SF of the retail space. Jordan Roeschlaub, Dustin Stolly and Chris Kramer of Newmark arranged the financing.
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Vault Development Partners and TLM Equities nabbed a $20.1M loan from private equity firm Urban Standard Capital for its 12-unit condo project on 66 Clinton St., Commercial Observer reported. The construction loan will be converted into a condo inventory loan when the joint venture gets a certificate of occupancy for the building. Construction is scheduled for completion this fall. Urban Standard Capital’s Robert Levine and Seth Weissman led negotiations for the financing.
CORRECTION, APRIL 27, 12:30 P.M. ET: A previous version included a typo in Janet Mandell. This article has been updated.
