This Week’s N.Y. Deal Sheet
Green shoots are sprouting in New York's real estate market on the last official day of spring, as a private equity firm is expanding and moving its headquarters to renovated office space in Midtown and a gym with seven pickleball courts signed a lease near Penn Station.
TOP LEASES
Private equity group Clayton Dubilier & Rice has signed a 144K SF lease with Olayan Group at its 550 Madison Ave. office tower, previously known as the Sony Building, Bloomberg reports. The private equity firm is taking six floors — 18 through 22, as well as the 26th floor — of the 41-story, 800K SF tower that Olayan Group gut-renovated to include a garden, a library and a new air filtration system. The building will also soon have a new restaurant concept at its base, headed by Michelin-starred restaurateur Simon Kim. It also counts insurer Chubb, luxury fashion house Hermès, and a recent stream of investment firms like Corsair Capital and Junto Capital among its tenants. Clayton Dubilier & Rice’s lease more than doubles the firm’s NYC footprint at the Seagram Building at 375 Park Ave.
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Fitness chain Life Time announced it will move into 53K SF at Vornado Realty Trust’s PENN 1 in a deal negotiated by an in-house team on behalf of Vornado, while Joe Mastromonaco of Atlantic Retail repped the fitness club. Life Time has plans underway for clubs in The Brooklyn Tower, Brooklyn Crossing and Park Avenue, but PENN 1 will open before those facilities, offering indoor gym facilities and studio classes this summer and pickleball courts, a lounge area and a bar area opening next summer. The primary entrance to the club will be along the 33rd Street Plaza, facing Madison Square Garden, per a release.
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Ember Charter Schools has inked a 25K SF deal in Brooklyn’s Vinegar Hill neighborhood, Commercial Observer reports. The charter school is opening in the seven-story 295 Front St., with asking rents coming in at $38 per SF. Eddie Keda, Chandler Slate and Joseph Bouzaglou negotiated the deal on behalf of the landlord, FM Capital, while Ember completed the deal without a broker. Ember signed a 17-year lease, taking up the fourth and fifth floors, and plans to build out two upper floors for its new campus by the end of next summer.
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Cancer therapy developer Volastra Therapeutics has renewed its 15K SF lease at the Mink Building, Janus Property Co.’s 250K SF property at 1361 Amsterdam Ave., Commercial Observer reported. The biotech company has been in the space since 2020 and renewed for another three years, staying in the spot in part because Janus built out the space specifically for Volastra and in part because of the property’s public transit links. Several other life sciences firms are also in the building, including Harlem Biospace II, Quicksilver Biosciences and Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals. Volastra and Janus handled the renewal in-house.
TOP SALES
A gut-renovated mixed-use Greenwich Village property that has 67 residential units and one retail space across two buildings has sold for $49M, according to a release. Private German investment firm The Flag bought the buildings from a joint venture of Davean Holdings and Meadow Partners. The property, 103-105 MacDougal St., is two blocks from NYU’s campus and is just south of Washington Square Park. Walker & Dunlop’s David Ash arranged the deal.
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An affiliate of longtime Williamsburg development and construction firm Sunshine Construction has purchased 203-209 North 11th St. in Williamsburg, according to a release. The property, a 30K SF development site previously home to a vacant warehouse, was sold for $13.5M by a private investor who has owned the property since 1984. The sale price works out to roughly $100 per SF. Michael Sherman, founder of Baseline Real Estate Advisors, represented both parties in the deal.
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Investor Zevi Kohn and a consortium of three Brooklyn-based LLCs — 48 Cedar Street LLC, Scheiner Holdings LLC and Gamfal LLC — have sold 48 Cedar St. for $70M, Crain’s New York Business reported. The 240-bed nursing facility Buena Vida Continuing Care and Rehabilitation Center in Bushwick sold to New Jersey-based LLC BV SNF Realty on June 9, which took on three mortgages to finance the deal. BV SNF Realty secured two loans, one of $52M and one of $13.3M, with private lenders and an $8.8M mortgage from Baltimore-based Capital Funding LLC.
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A former sign factory in Canarsie spanning 95K SF has changed hands for $28M, Crain’s reported. Jacob Brauner purchased the property from seller Harold Abrams through the entity Adar Ym Holdings LLC, PincusCo reported. The property is a 1956-built industrial space with around 50 parking spots, according to Commercial Cafe. A LoopNet listing shows 88K SF of rental space, six interior loading docks and three exterior tailboard doors for tractor-trailers.
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L+M Development Partners sold six multifamily properties in Harlem for $10.1M, Crain’s reported. The properties, located at 203, 205, 207, 209, 211 and 215 West 148th St., were purchased by Asland Capital Partners and the Housing Partnership Development Corp. The 87-unit portfolio will be rehabilitated by Asland, which plans to maintain them as affordable housing at around 60% of the area median income. The acquisition is part of Asland’s affordable housing investment, which the investor is making with the support of the city’s Department of Housing Preservation & Development, as well as the Housing Development Corp. and Goldman Sachs.
TOP FINANCING
KPG Funds scored a $50M construction loan to refinance 40 Crosby St., a 70K SF SoHo office building that KPG plans to reposition as a boutique luxury office, according to a release. The three-year loan comes from Sabal Investment Holdings and GDS Bright Star. KPG is planning a full renovation in that time that will include a dedicated Crosby Street entrance, touchless entry, an open design and 18K SF of retail on the ground floor that hopes to attract a big-box retail tenant. The four floors of office space on top of the retail would be able to accommodate multiple tenants or could serve as a contiguous space for a flagship tenant, per the release. Newmark’s Nick Scribani, Dustin Stolly and Jordy Roeschlaub arranged the deal on behalf of KPG.
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Real estate investor and development firm HSR Corp notched a $58M loan from Morgan Stanley to refinance a Class-A office space in SoHo, according to a release. The five-year loan will be used to renovate 503-511 Broadway, a five-story office building with 10K SF of ground-floor retail with 125 feet of street frontage along Broadway and Mercer Street. HSR acquired the building, which has 111K SF of office space and was first constructed in the early 1900s, in 1982. The property is 100% leased and has tenants like PacSun, Away Travel and Bath & Body Works. There is also 14K SF of ground-floor retail space and 128K SF of space across the cellar and second floor within the building that is part of a condo owned by Zara's parent company, Inditex, and is not part of the collateral for the loan. Emil DePasquale and George Pektor of real estate financial advisory firm Black Bear Capital Partners, a subsidiary of Black Bear Asset Management, arranged the loan on behalf of HSR Corp.
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Slate Property Group landed a $30.2M loan for its Dutch House multifamily property in Astoria, Crain’s reported. The eight-story property, which features 186 units and 21K SF of ground-floor retail space, first came online last summer and was 65% leased within six weeks, per reporting at the time from Real Estate Weekly. The latest cash injection for Dutch House, located at 37-05 30th St., came from PCCP, according to Crain’s. The amenity-heavy Aufgang Architects-designed property features a concierge lobby, a fitness center, bike storage and a rooftop terrace, among other elements, and has 56 affordable apartments.
