This Week's N.Y. Deal Sheet
New York City's usual torrent of deals slowed to an unsteady drip during this late-summer week, but dealmakers managed to eke out a handful of large leases and multifamily refinancing deals.
TOP LEASES
Christie’s has renewed its lease at the Rockefeller Center for another 25 years, according to a release. The auction house is staying put in the 400K SF it occupies in the Tishman Speyer-owned building where Christie’s has its NYC headquarters, sale rooms, corporate offices, public galleries and warehouse space. CBRE’s Mary Ann Tighe, Ramneek Rikhy, Cara Chayet and Courtney Hughson and Fried Frank’s Jen Yashar and Danielle Frank repped Christie’s. Tishman Speyer was represented in-house by EB Kelly and Blythe Kinsler as well as by Charlie Mileski from Davis & Gilbert.
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Yeshiva University has signed a 160K SF lease at JEMB Realty’s 1293 Broadway, according to a release. The private Orthodox Jewish university has signed a 32-year leasehold condominium agreement for its space at the property, which is sometimes known as the Herald Center. The agreement covers the parts of the ground and mezzanine floors plus floors five through nine. Apparel retailer H&M occupies part of the building's ground-floor retail. The deal with Yeshiva University brings the property to 100% leased. The 138-year-old university was represented by a JLL team that was led by David Carlos at the time, although Carlos has since moved to Savills. JEMB Realty was repped in-house by Jacob Jerome and Morris Bailey as well as by Brian Waterman, Brent Ozarowski, David Berke and Kevin Sullivan of Newmark, according to Commercial Observer.
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Otto Environmental Systems has signed a 60K SF lease at Turnbridge Equities and Dune Real Estate Partners’ 807 Bank St., a 172K SF warehouse in south Brooklyn’s Canarsie neighborhood, The Real Deal reported. Asking rents were in the mid-$30s per SF. The deal brings the warehouse to 100% occupied just a few years after the landlords acquired the property in late 2021, then demolished and rebuilt a Class A building on the same lot. Otto, which recently obtained a contract with NYC to provide trash cans to homeowners across the city, was represented by Rico Murtha and Helen Paul of Cushman & Wakefield. Murtha and Paul also represented the landlords along with colleagues Amanda Gerhardt and Joseph Hentze, Commercial Observer reported.
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GU, the sister brand to Japanese fashion house Uniqlo, has signed an 11K SF sublease at Cape Advisors’ 5 Crosby St. for office space near a space where it plans to have a flagship store in the near future, Commercial Observer reported. GU is currently subleasing the second floor of the office building from insurer Lemonade, which plans to keep its space on the third floor of the building. The clothing retailer has 25K SF at 568 Broadway, where it operated a pop-up after Forever 21 left the SoHo spot and made the decision to move in permanently in February. Matthew Seigel of Lantern Real Estate represented sublandlord Lemonade and Lance Yasinsky of JLL represented GU.
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Arden Group has landed two leases totaling 75K SF at 4650 Broadway, its Upper Manhattan mixed-use tower, Commercial Observer reported. Charter school School in the Square signed a 60K SF lease covering the second and third floors of the 315K SF tower, with the space serving as an expansion of its high school space at 120 Wadsworth Ave. Fine Fare Supermarkets signed for 15K SF for a flagship location on the property’s ground floor. Justin DiMare and Christopher Ventura of Newmark repped the landlord in both deals.
TOP SALES
Thor Equities Group has acquired the former Tootsie Roll Factory in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood at a $9M discount on its previous sale price, Commercial Observer reported. Fairstead sold the 275 Park Ave. property for $58.5M, having purchased it in 2019 for $67M. The seven-story property was first built in the 1890s and was also previously known as the Chocolate Factory Lofts. Rosewood Realty Group’s Aaron Jungreis, Ben Khakshoor and Alex Fuchs represented both the buyer and the seller in the deal, according to a release.
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A housing development fund corporation tied to VIP Community Services and Better Haven, two Bronx-based nonprofits, has acquired a seven-story property in the borough’s Wakefield neighborhood, Commercial Observer reported. The seller of the newly built property, which has an address of 4427 White Plains Road, was an LLC linked to HKS Real Estate Advisors and SKF Development. The corporation plans to manage the property and sublease the housing units to low-income families.
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Rockrose shelled out $65M for a site in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood that was once slated to become a condo tower, The Real Deal reported. Seller Madison Realty Capital had bought the site in October 2022 to allow then-owner Fortis Property Group to avoid foreclosure, also acquiring 350 Hicks St. in the process. Madison still owns the Hicks Street property, but Rockrose is now the owner of 91-95 Pacific St., where Fortis had planned to put the majority of the 150 residential units that it would have built across the two sites.
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Howard Hughes Holding Co. has paid $40M to the city of New York for the air rights at 250 Water St., where it is planning a 27-story tower intended to yield as many as 400 units, Crain’s New York Business reported. The development will benefit from the 421-a extension and plans to reserve 100 of the units as affordable housing.
TOP FINANCING
JPMorgan Chase has agreed to lend $209.8M to Slate Property Group to refinance 17 properties, The Real Deal reported. The properties include a Salvation Army rehab center at 62 Hanson Place, a homeless shelter at 427 W. 52nd St. in Hell’s Kitchen and a hotel property at 399 3rd Ave. in Gowanus. Other properties also included in the deal are 141 W. 144th St. in Harlem, three units at 161 Lexington Ave. in Kips Bay, 85-15 101st Ave. in Ozone Park, plus 1851 Phelan Place, 1732 Webster Avenue and 360 E. 193rd St. in the Bronx.
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Silverstein Properties nabbed a $245M refinancing deal from Goldman Sachs for its 921-unit Hell's Kitchen residential tower, PincusCo reported. The loan on the 1 River Place property replaces a $235M CMBS loan from Greystone Commercial Capital Trust Series 2021-3.
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JPMorgan and Tyko Capital provided a $1.2B refinancing deal to Witkoff, Access Industries and Monroe Capital for One High Line, two luxury towers containing residential condos and a hotel at 500 W. 18th St. The deal is one of the year’s largest backed by a single asset and is split into a senior loan and a mezzanine loan. The owners bought the development, previously known as The XI, out of foreclosure and in a half-finished state from its original developer, HFZ Capital. Ownership has now sold more than $800M worth of condos at the Chelsea development, which was completed earlier this year.
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Gilar Realty and Ranco Capital scored an $87M floating-rate loan from BridgeCity Capital to build a 22-story apartment tower at 540 Third Ave. in Murray Hill, Commercial Observer reported. The loan has a term of up to 36 months. The planned multifamily property will add 160 apartments and around 4K SF of ground floor retail space, replacing a five-story building that the owners demolished during the winter.
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Citizens Bank has agreed to lend $39M to refinance five affordable housing properties in Far Rockaway, Queens, Commercial Observer reported. The loans cover 22-29 Dix Ave., 22-37 Dix Ave., 22-45 Dix Ave., 22-51 Dix Ave. and 22-59 Dix Ave., all of which were built in 1998 and together total 130 units. The $39M sum is made up of four loans: a $17.1M senior sum, $15.4M in subordinate debt, and two other loans of $4.5M and $1.9M. The borrowers were Urban Homestead Assistance Board, a nonprofit, and entities linked to its partner, Workforce Housing Group.
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BMW Financial Services has agreed to lend $53.5M to Dennis & Co. Auto Group to build two new properties in Sunnyside, Queens, PincusCo reported. The industrial properties, located at 38-08 43rd Ave. and 38-15 Queens Blvd., are the site of a planned 103K SF showroom that received permits in June. The new debt is in addition to another $24M that came from the same lender in September.
