This Week’s N.Y. Deal Sheet
A few weeks after the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut, financing and sales deals remained slow in New York City this week, with deals still concentrated on residential assets.
TOP LEASES
GDS Development and Sabal Investment Holdings have signed flex office firm International Workplace Group to 93K SF at 142 W. 57th St., Commercial Observer reported. IWG's Spaces concept will occupy six floors of the building’s office condo portion, which takes up 18 of the 283K SF tower’s 77 stories. GDS and Sabal have been in control of the entire building since March, when the pair obtained a controlling stake in its office portion. The building’s other floors are occupied by retail and residential units.
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Sam Altman’s OpenAI has signed a 90K SF deal at Kushner Cos.' Puck Building, a 166K SF office building at 295 Lafayette St. in SoHo, The Wall Street Journal reported. OpenAI was reportedly looking for around 60K SF but landed on a deal giving them 50% more space than originally planned in the 140-year-old building owned by the family firm since 1980. Newmark’s Christina Clark, Steven Rotter and Ben Shapiro brokered the deal for OpenAI, according to CO.
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The biotech firm founded by former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is moving into 50K SF at Vornado’s 1 Penn Plaza, The Real Deal reported. Roivant Sciences signed a 15-year lease for the 2.7M SF tower's penthouse, spanning the whole 54th and 55th floors, with an asking rent of $140 per SF. Roivant is relocating from The Durst Organization’s 151 W. 42nd St. Vornado was represented in-house by Josh Glick and Jared Silverman, while the tenant was represented by a Newmark team including Neil Goldmacher and Josh Friedman.
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SL Green has signed TD Bank to a 26K SF expansion at 125 Park Ave., bringing its space in the tower to 130K SF, according to a release. The 10-year lease gives the bank the whole eighth floor in the landmark building and brings it to 100% occupancy. SL Green was represented by Brian Waterman, David Falk, Pete Shimkin and Daniel Levine of Newmark. TD Bank was represented by CBRE’s Robert Alexander, Ryan Alexander, Matthew Saker and Nicole Marshall.
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An immersive board game experience is coming to Times Square, The Real Deal reported. British company Path Entertainment Group signed a 50K SF lease at 11 Times Square, where it will bring an immersive Monopoly experience to the neighborhood. Asking rents were unclear, but the landlord was asking for $8M in annual rent, or $160 per SF, for the space, which spans 1.1M SF and opened in 2011. Those prices would make the deal one of the largest signed in the area since 2018.
TOP SALES
Sani Group has acquired three largely residential properties from Page Management for $50.5M, according to a release. The properties are the 53-unit 300 W. 12th St., the 35-unit 240 W. 15th St., which has one retail unit, and the 12-unit 5 Jones St., which has two retail units. Avison Young’s James Nelson, Brandon Polakoff, David Shalom, Ryan McGuirl, Alexandra Marolda and Ed Nelson represented both the buyer and the seller in the deal.
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Another Spanish billionaire who built a business empire on fast fashion has made a real estate splash in Manhattan. Isak Andic, who founded clothing store Mango, has purchased a retail condo at 512 Broadway through his real estate company, Punta NA, The Real Deal reported. The condo, which is leased to apparel store Cotton On, sold for $26.9M. Cotton On has another nine years before its lease expires. The sale price is almost half the $55M seller Invesco paid for the condo last time it changed hands in 2010, when the city’s retail real estate market was recovering from the Global Financial Crisis.
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Kushner Cos. has sold yet more mixed-use East Village properties, Commercial Observer reported. JBS Capital Group bought 329-335 E. Ninth St. for $26.9M and 516-518 E. 13th St. for $11M, netting Kushner $37.9M. The seller’s recent multifamily sales in Manhattan’s East Village neighborhood have come as company president Nicole Kushner Meyer looks beyond NYC to New Jersey for the company’s future.
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More details about Empire State Realty Trust’s $195M July push into Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood came to light in public records this week. The REIT dropped a total of $132.5M across four properties, including $28.3M for 134 N. Sixth St. where Google is a retail tenant, Commercial Observer reported. Other parts of the deal include $18.1M for Warby Parker’s Williamsburg location and another $18.1M sale for the building where Everlane and The North Face are retail tenants, 100-104 N. Sixth St. The final deal revealed this week was $68M for 81-91 N. Sixth St., home to locations for Nike, Hermès and Santander Bank’s work café. The assets that ESRT splashed the remaining $63.5M on in Williamsburg aren't yet clear.
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The Torkian Group shelled out $25M to acquire a three-property development site from Copperwood Real Estate, PincusCo reported. The site is at 1382-1386 Second Ave. in Manhattan's Lenox Hill neighborhood and appears to be a residential building with retail at the base. The buyer also paid nearly $3.8M to Copperwood for the air rights of a neighboring property, 1388 Second Ave. Victor Sozio, Shimon Shkury and Remi Mandell brokered the deal for both sides, CO reported.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
PH Realty Capital, Rockledge and Alma Realty have signed an acquisition loan with lender BridgeInvest across three separate filings in deals totaling $53M and covering 720 rental units in Manhattan and Brooklyn, PincusCo reported. The first deal was for $24.8M and covered 251 Washington Heights units between 4101 Broadway, 725 W. 184th St. and 110 Bennett Ave. The second deal was worth $15M and covered five buildings, including 165 E. 19th St., 120 E. 19th St. and 146 E. 19th St. in Flatbush. The third deal was worth $13.2M and covered two Brighton Beach properties at 211 Brighton 15th St. and 200-210 Brighton 15th St.
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Allure Group netted $155M in construction debt from a group of lenders led by Valley National Bank and with participation from Metropolitan Commercial Bank and Bank Mizrahi-Tefahot, CO reported. The loan covers a multifamily building that recently topped out at 270 Nostrand Ave., where 320 units are expected to be completed by late 2025. The project benefits from the 421-a tax break and will consist of three buildings: a 140-unit affordable building, a 110-unit market-rate building and a 70-unit condo building. The developer bought the property from a nursing home in 2015, spending $15.6M at the time and rezoning in 2021 for residential and commercial uses.
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AJU Continuum, previously known as AJU Hotel & Resort, scored a $90M refinancing for two Hyatt hotels in Manhattan, PincusCo reported. The first hotel is the Hyatt Place New York at 52-56 W. 36th St. in the Garment District. The second is the Hyatt Herald Square New York at 30 W. 31st St. in Penn Plaza. The loan came from Hanmi Bank, according to PincusCO.
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Steven Elghanayan’s Epic LLC refinanced its debt on an office and retail building in the Meatpacking District with TD Bank, appearing to put in more equity to get the deal done, PincusCo reported. The $53M loan at 410 W. 13th St. is a modification of a $55M loan in 2015 from the same lender. Elghanayan’s company has owned the property since 2011, when it paid $69M to acquire it.
