This Week’s N.Y. Deal Sheet
The summer slowdown has finally arrived in New York City's commercial real estate market after an active June, but there were still a handful of deals of note, including two finance firms expanding on Park Avenue.
Ares Management signed a renewal and expansion deal with SL Green at 245 Park Ave., adding three floors as it signed for a total of 307K SF. The alternative asset manager will soon occupy the top eight floors of the 1.8M SF building on a 15-year deal, Commercial Observer reported. Asking rents were unclear, but the lower floors of the 44-story property command $145 per SF. SL Green acquired the building from a bankrupt HNA Group affiliate in 2022 and sold a 49.9% stake in it last year to Japanese investor Mori Trust Co. at a $2B valuation.
CBRE’s Christopher Corrinet, Lewis Miller, Michael Geoghegan, Munish Viralam and Cara Chayet repped Ares, with help from Jeffrey Peck, Daniel Horowitz, John Bertram, Roi Shleifer and Jacob Sternand of Savills. Patrick Murphy, Bruce Mosler, Tara Stacom, Harry Blair, Ron LoRusso, Justin Royce, Pierce Hance and Will Yeatman of Cushman & Wakefield repped SL Green in the deal.
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Blackstone has expanded its footprint at Rudin’s 345 Park Ave. by 251K SF, according to a release. The majority of the alternative asset manager’s 1.4M SF of office space in New York City is now in the Plaza District building, where it has a footprint of 1M SF following the expansion. Blackstone will occupy a total of 28 of the 1.9M SF property’s 44 stories and is now the seventh-largest commercial office tenant in the city. Rudin plans to add a new amenity package to the property by 2026 as part of the deal, with a new fitness center plus food and beverage offerings. Rudin’s Tom Keating, Rob Steinman and Kevin Daly repped the landlord in-house. A JLL team of Peter Riguardi, Joe Messina, Jessica Berkey, William McGarry, Hale King, Cynthia Wasserberger and Carlee Palmer represented Blackstone, alongside Fried Frank’s Jonathan Mechanic and Jen Yashar.
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Law firm Golenbock Eiseman Assor Bell & Peskoe has renewed its 38K SF space at SL Green's 711 Third Ave. for eight years, Commercial Observer reported. The law firm first moved into the property in 2015 and plans to stay put on the 16th and 17th floors. Tenants in the 20-story building include Ellington Management Group, which signed for almost 20K SF in May 2021. Newmark’s Robert Silver and Scott Brown repped Golenbock in the deal.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
Maxim Capital Group, Sabal Investment Holdings and GDS Brightstar have agreed to lend $50M to a joint venture of Chelsfield Group and Ram Holdings to refinance a 12-story office and retail property in SoHo, Commercial Observer reported. The joint venture acquired 114 Crosby St. from BridgeInvest in 2022. The new loan replaces a $35M acquisition loan for the building, which signed Arc’teryx to 14K SF of ground-floor and basement retail space and has leased approximately half of its 114K SF of office space.
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Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp. nabbed an $85M, five-year loan from Citi Real Estate Funding for a boutique Upper West Side Hotel, CO reported. The loan will refinance Ashkenazy’s interest in the 300-key, 16-story Arthouse Hotel New York City. Ashkenazy spent $140M acquiring the hotel in 2013 following a $20M renovation.
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PGIM Real Estate has agreed to loan $75.5M to LeFrak to refinance a retail condo at 180 Broadway, PincusCo reported. LeFrak used the proceeds to retire an $89.7M loan from Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance tied to the 25K SF Financial District property.
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Samaritan Daytop Village scored a $270M construction loan from the NYC Housing Development Corp., NYS Homeless Housing And Assistance Corporation and Citibank, PincusCo reported. The sum will finance the building of a 422-unit, 334K SF residential building at 1387 University Ave. in the Bronx's Highbridge neighborhood.
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Sachs Cos. notched a $51M refinancing loan for two multifamily properties, Commercial Observer reported. The sum came from 3650 REIT and covers 210 E. 58th St. and 155 E. 55th St., both of which are 13 stories high and make up a combined total of 161 rental units. Alvin Dworman sold the properties to Sachs in June 2021 for a total of $85M.
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Naftali Credit Partners has closed two loans totaling $31.4M on ground-up developments in Manhattan and Queens, according to a release. The first was $18M in mezzanine debt to New Empire for 24-01 Queens Plaza North, a 117-unit luxury condo and retail project in Long Island City. Naftali Credit also provided a $13.4M loan for the acquisition, development and management of a 20-unit luxury condo and retail property at 813-815 Broadway in Greenwich Village.
TOP SALES
Starwood Capital Group has sold 1 Hotel Central Park to Host Hotels & Resorts for $233.8M. The total sale price was actually higher than the number that appeared in public records, coming in at $265M, a Starwood spokesperson told Bisnow. Barry Sternlicht's Starwood opened the 229-key hotel in 2015 and began seeking a sale a year later, looking for buyers willing to pay more than $1M per room. No deal took place at the time, but this deal met that demand.
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PH Realty Capital and Rockledge CRE spent $54.8M acquiring six Upper Manhattan rental buildings from Sentinel Real Estate, PincusCo reported. The properties are the 78-unit 725 W. 184th St., the 85-unit 66-74 St. Nicholas Place, the 53-unit 110 Bennett Ave., the 61-unit 75 St. Nicholas Place, the 31-unit 76 St. Nicholas Place and the 24-unit 853 St. Nicholas Ave. Sale prices for three of the six properties were below the price that Sentinel paid to acquire them, PincusCo reported.
Property records confirmed that Sentinel sold one more of the six properties for less than it paid for the building. Overall, Sentinel spent roughly $71.9M acquiring the properties between 2013 and 2019, making the $54.8M sale a discount of approximately 24%. Ryan Perkoski and John Martisch of RPR Ventures and Amit Doshi of Meridian Capital Group brokered the deals, which were executed as six separate transactions, per PincusCo. Prime Finance supplied financing for at least some of the purchases — 24 of which are planned in total — to a joint venture of PH Realty Capital, Alma Realty and Rockledge, Commercial Observer reported.
