This Week's N.Y. Deal Sheet

Much of the activity in the New York City commercial real estate market over the past week was centered in office-to-residential conversions as excitement mounts in the development community about the projects.

TOP SALES

David Werner Real Estate Investments and Lloyd Goldman’s BLDG Management acquired 100 Wall St., a 464K SF office building, for $116M, PincusCo reported. Werner had been in talks with buyer Barings since April, per previous reporting from The Real Deal. The deal closed last week. Barings bought the office building for $270M in 2015, and the new owners are reportedly likely to pursue a residential conversion.

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Brookfield Properties spent $48.5M to buy out its partner's 30% stake in 111 Worth St., a luxury residential building in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood, from Pinnacle Group, Commercial Observer reported. The sale means that Pinnacle Group no longer has any interest in the 331-unit property. Brookfield already had a stake in the property prior to this transaction, but it’s unclear when it acquired its previous stake or if there are other partners.

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Ravinder Chopra has acquired 102 Greenwich St. for $15.3M, Crain’s New York Business reported. Chopra plans to turn the FiDi property, currently a five-story student housing building for now-shuttered evangelical institution The King’s College, into a 36-key hotel. The hotelier mostly owns properties in Queens, including Hotel Key Flushing at 33-53 Farrington St. and Sky Hotel Flushing at 133-43 37th Ave. Chopra told Crain’s that he hopes to complete the transformation by the end of August, spending around $1M to paint, furnish and make cosmetic upgrades to the property.

TOP LEASES

Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP has agreed to stay in its huge office at CommonWealth Partners’ 787 Seventh Ave., according to a release. The law firm, which has been a tenant in the property for 25 years, signed a 315K SF renewal for another 20 years. Los Angeles-based CommonWealth agreed to fully renovate the law firm's space in the 50-story, 1.8M SF building to meet its future needs.

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The Durst Organization has signed Stark Office Suites to a full floor at 825 Third Ave., according to a release. The 17-year lease gives Stark a 12K SF space in the 530K SF office tower. Asking rents were in the low- to mid-$90s per SF, with Savills’ Craig Lemle and Roi Shleifer repping Stark in the deal. Tom Bow, Ashlea Aaron, Sayo Kamara and Bailey Caliban repped Durst in-house. Stark, a flex office space company, also has offices in One Grand Central Place and 110 E. 59th St., as well as in Westchester County, Connecticut and Long Island, Commercial Observer reported. Other tenants in the building, which recently went through a $150M capital improvement plan, include Siris Capital and Allied Irish Banks.

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Socceroof signed for 20K SF at Fosun Hive’s 28 Liberty St., Commercial Observer reported. The lease marks the fourth in New York City and the first in Manhattan for the indoor soccer company. Other locations include Brooklyn’s Sunset Park and Crown Heights neighborhoods as well as Long Island City in Queens. The 60-story property in Manhattan’s Financial District also has pickleball and tennis club Court 16, plus offices of tenants including law firm Carter Ledyard & Milburn and payments company Stripe. Newmark brokers repped both tenant and landlord, with Jeffrey Roseman, Ross Kaplan and Drew Weiss hashing out the deal on behalf of Fosun Hive and Jordan Gosin on behalf of Socceroof.

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Baby clothing chain Carter’s is coming to Empire State Realty Trust’s 22-story building at 1350 Broadway, Commercial Observer reported. Carter’s, which has around 1,000 retail locations in North America in addition to selling its apparel in department stores, has signed an 11-year office lease for 25K SF.

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Sephora has renewed its lease on Madison Avenue at a significant discount, Crain’s New York Business reported. The LVMH-owned cosmetics giant renegotiated its lease for 6K SF at 520 Madison Ave., a 43-story building spanning 1M SF, at just $156 per SF. The price is 66% below the rents it was paying on a deal that expired in June, and keeps Sephora at the Tishman Speyer-owned space for a further 18 months. Occupancy is currently at 96% in the building and the property’s $675M mortgage isn’t due to mature until 2034. But office properties with vacant retail at the base can be harder to lease up, Mark Cohen, a consultant and the former retail studies director at Columbia Business School Occupancy, told Crain’s. 

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State of Play Hospitality has signed an 11K SF lease at 31 Union Square West, according to a release. The hospitality company plans to set up the North American flagship of its darts-focused bar Flight Club after a five-year search for the right space. State of Play’s lease spans the ground floor, lower level and patio of the 16-story, landmarked office property. Flight Club currently has outposts in Boston, Houston, Atlanta, Las Vegas and Denver, per Commercial Observer, having launched in 2015 and first ventured into U.S. markets in 2018. Joe Hudson and Duane Davis of CBRE repped State of Play in the deal, while Brandon Singer, Kelly Gedinsky and Max Kreinces of Retail by MONA repped landlord David Ellis Real Estate.

TOP FINANCING DEALS

Pace University nabbed a $140.4M to refinance its university building at 154 Nassau St. in the Financial District, PincusCo reported. The financing came from the Dormitory Authority Of The State Of New York. The property spans 527K SF.

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Bank OZK has agreed to lend $52.5M to David Mandelbaum and Michael Mandelbaum to fund the conversion of a Midtown West office property at 245 W. 55th St., PincusCo reported. The Mandelbaum duo plan to convert the 63K SF property into a 42-unit residential building, filing plans in late January that have not yet been permitted. The pair bought the property last June for $28.5M. 

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Triangle Equities and Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group scored $85M to refinance a two-story industrial condo at 130-02 S Conduit Ave. in South Ozone Park, according to a release. The sum came from LoanCore Capital and covers the first two floors of the newly built Class A logistics facility. The Queens property is part of a five-story facility designed for industrial and self-storage users. Max Herzog, Marko Kazanjian, Max Hulsh and Andrew Cohen of Institutional Property Advisors Capital Markets arranged the financing.

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John Catsmidis’ Red Apple Group secured a $57M loan from JPMorgan Chase to develop a 12-story housing project in Chelsea, The Real Deal reported. Red Apple Group has owned the low-slung property at 280 Eighth Ave. for four decades and is now planning a 100K SF apartment building with 104 residential units, a fitness center and a rooftop garden. The developer expects to start leasing the building at the end of next year.

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Fetner Properties and Lions Group nabbed a $107M debt package to finance the end of construction and the lease-up process for a multifamily property near Queensboro Plaza, Commercial Observer reported. The family-run firms have been building The Bold, a 27-story, 164-unit property at 27-01 Jackson Ave. that they plan to deliver in September 2025. The funding comes from Valley Bank and IDB Bank, which provided a senior loan of $80M, paired with $27M from Mavik Capital Management in the form of a mezzanine loan. The Bold will be a mix of multifamily, retail and self-storage and is close to The Italic, a 49-story rental that the pair is developing nearby. 

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The shell company that owns a Lower East Side hotel at 225 Bowery has scored a loan from Northwind Group to help it exit bankruptcy, PincusCo reported. Northwind’s $85.3M loan on the 64K SF property replaces a $68M loan also issued by Northwind. Former owner David Paz of Omnia Group placed the building in bankruptcy last year. Paz had sought to convert the former flophouse into a boutique hotel before the property became ensnared in lawsuits, The Real Deal previously reported. The borrower, 225 Bowery LLC, was signed for by the chief restructuring officer for the bankrupt entity.

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Douglaston Development has signed a $153.5M construction loan with the NYC Housing Development Corp. for a development in the Bronx, PincusCo reported. The project is a 277-unit residential property at 410 Bedford Park Blvd. in the Fordham Manor neighborhood. Douglaston acquired the property in 2008 for $10M. CoStar reported that the development’s loan totals $190M, but only $153.5M has appeared so far in public records.

CORRECTION, JULY 31, 5:30 PM E.T.: The story has been updated to reflect that Carter’s lease at 1350 Broadway is for office space, not retail.