This Week’s N.Y. Deal Sheet
A wave of sizable leases, sales and financing deals washed over New York City as summer edges closer, with some of the year's biggest deals so far closing as the weather heats up.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
Paramount Group secured a critical refinancing, landing a $575M mortgage for 60 Wall St., its 1.6M SF, 47-story office tower, Crain’s New York Business reported. Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund is a co-owner along with Paramount Group. The lender is likely Aareal Capital, based on public records, Crain’s reported, as Aareal was the previous lender on the property. The new loan is split into two pieces: a $259M payment-in-kind loan with a 12% interest rate and a $326M loan with a 7.8% floating interest rate. The first loan type allows the lender to add any unpaid monthly obligations to the loan balance, while the second loan has a similar interest rate to one the owners defaulted on a year ago. A makeover with a price tag of around $250M has been in the works for the 35-year-old property since Deutsche Bank departed in 2021, leaving the building empty.
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Grubb Properties has refinanced its Long Island City apartment development with a $214.5M construction loan, according to a release. The North Carolina-based developer just topped out Link Apartments QPN at 25-01 Queens Plaza North, a building that will eventually feature 417 apartments, 125 of which will be income-restricted, as well as 7K SF of retail. The lenders were Related Cos. and Kennedy Wilson, Commercial Mortgage Alert reported. A Charlotte-based CBRE team of Elliott Voreis, Nate Sittema, Kristen Reilley and Owen Hall arranged the loan. Grubb had previously secured multiple loans from Maxim Credit Group on the property, the two most recent of which were recorded Jan. 8 for $58.5M and $18.5M.
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A joint venture of MCR, Island Capital Group and Three Wall Capital notched a $155M loan from Hudson Bay Capital to refinance The Lexington Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, according to a release. The 28-story, 725-key hotel has been a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel since 2013 and was first built in 1929. A Walker & Dunlop team of Jordan Casella, Aaron Appel, Keith Kurland, Jonathan Schwartz, Adam Schwartz and Christopher de Raet arranged the financing on behalf of the joint venture ownership.
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G4 Capital Partners nabbed a $34M loan from GDS Brightstar and Sabal Investment Holdings to refinance a 40K SF boutique office building in the Meatpacking District, according to a release. The 11-story, Class-A property was recently completed and is almost fully leased. The three-year loan will allow ownership to complete remaining tenant fit-outs, as well as financing the lease-up of the remaining floor.
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Monadnock Development has signed a $110.4M construction loan with the NYC Housing Development Corp. for a residential building in East New York, PincusCo reported. The sum will go toward a 189-unit development at 890 Erskine St. The financing deal closed April 26, although plans for the project haven't yet been permitted.
TOP LEASES
One of the biggest leases this year has been signed at 63 Madison Ave., where American Eagle Outfitters is taking 338K SF of office space. Part of the space is through a direct lease for around 110K SF with owners George Comfort & Sons and its partners at the property, Jamestown and Loeb Partners Realty. The direct lease includes the 66K SF concourse area in the building. American Eagle is subleasing another 162K SF on the eighth through 10th floors from broadcaster CBS. George Comfort & Sons recently completed a major renovation program at the 860K SF tower, furnishing the building with a new lobby and retail spaces anchored by Whole Foods. American Eagle was repped by Savills’ Mitti Liebersohn, David Goldstein, Anna Erickson, Nate Brozowski and Will Demut. George Comfort & Sons’ Peter Duncan, Matt Coudert and Alex Bermingham repped the landlord in-house. Mark Boisi of Cushman & Wakefield repped CBS.
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Condé Nast has subleased 48K SF of its space at One World Trade Center to risk and financial advisory firm Kroll, Bisnow has learned. Kroll is relocating from its space at 55 E. 52nd St. to the 31st floor of the property, owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and The Durst Organization, for 10 years. Asking rents were $55 per SF. Peter Riguardi, Joseph Messina and Andrew Coe of JLL represented Condé Nast in the deal, while Michael Gottlieb, Marty Cottingham and Alexis Odgers of Avison Young represented Kroll.
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Taconic Partners signed three leases totaling 51K SF at its Urban Empowerment Center, a mixed-use Harlem development at 121 West 125th St., according to a release. The largest of the three leases was signed by the Studio Museum, which took 26K SF of offices across the street from its new museum on 125th Street. Virginia Union University signed for just over 19K SF, and the United Negro College Fund signed for almost 6K SF. Taconic’s George Tsapelas handled the deals, and there were no outside brokers. The property is a 414K SF building developed by Taconic, L+M Development Partners, The Prusik Group and BRP Cos., in collaboration with Empire State Development. It has 90K SF of office space, 94K SF of retail space and 171 income-restricted residential units. The three new tenants will join civil rights organization the National Urban League as it returns to its Harlem roots after years of being headquartered in Lower Manhattan.
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Law firm Sullivan & Worcester has signed a 42K SF sublease at Mitsui Fudosan America’s 1251 Sixth Ave., Commercial Observer reported. The law firm is taking space from Lowenstein Sandler after it expanded to 125K SF in the building in 2021. Lowenstein Sandler was repped by Cresa’s Michael Goldman, while Sullivan & Worcester was repped by CBRE’s Jason Gorman, John Nugent, David Fitzgerald and Marlee Teplitsky. Other tenants in the building include asset manager TCW Group and financial advisory firm Solomon Partners.
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Two Trees Management Co. has signed four new leases at The Refinery at Domino, the redeveloped sugar factory on the Williamsburg waterfront, according to a release. Visual commerce startup Eko has signed for 3K SF and will move from a coworking space. Hair care firm The Beachwaver Co. signed for 5K SF of office, studio and showroom space and is relocating its headquarters from Chicago to the Brooklyn space. Digital marketplace startup Whop is trading its lease at 10 Grand St. in the same neighborhood for 10K SF at the former sugar refinery. Venue development firm Skylight signed for 3K SF. The new agreements mean the 15-story, 460K SF property has now leased 34K SF of its commercial space since opening in September, according to the release.
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City Winery has signed for 15K SF at Hudson River Park’s Pier 57 in Chelsea, according to a release. The tenant plans to bring three new dining and entertainment establishments into the space, including a Mediterranean restaurant, a tequila bar and lounge, and a rooftop sushi bar. City Winery has a 52K SF footprint at Pier 57 following the deals, and it was represented by Lee & Associates NYC’s Peter Braus. RXR, which was part of the group that redeveloped Pier 57, was represented in-house by William Elder. Google is Pier 57’s anchor tenant and has 350K SF of office space.
TOP SALES
A controversial development site close to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden has changed hands for $64M, Crain’s New York Business reported. Brooklyn developer Yitzchok Schwartz has bought the site of the former Spice Factory at 124-130 Montgomery St. and has already filed plans with the city for a seven-story, 289-unit residential tower. The proposal is slightly larger than plans scrapped by the seller, nursing home operator Centers Health Care and Daryl Hagler, for a six-story, 293-unit property on the site. It was also previously the location of controversy years ago when then-owners Lincoln Equities and Continuum Co. proposed a development spanning 24 stories and more than 1M SF that would have blocked light to the Botanic Garden.
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L+M Fund Management, an affiliate of L+M Development Partners, has purchased a 1,600-unit housing complex for $84.5M, Crain’s New York Business reported. The affordable housing development, known as Knickerbocker Village, is at 10-12 Monroe St. and was sold by Stellar Management. The Lower East Side complex was one of the first housing developments to receive federal funding and has been around since the Great Depression. All units in the 12-building complex will remain permanently affordable, and existing tenants won't be subject to arbitrary rent increases, with the new deal allowing capital improvements at the property.
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Carlyle Group has acquired four self-storage properties in Brooklyn and Queens for a total of $110M, PincusCo first reported. The largest of those acquisitions is 87-16 121st St. in Richmond, Queens, for which it paid $50.3M. The other properties included in the deal are 145 18th St., 651 Utica Ave. and 1690 East New York Ave., Commercial Observer reported. The properties were all developed by seller Safe N Lock Self Storage between 2018 and 2020 and range from 36K SF to 155K SF.
