This Week's NY Deal Sheet
As September entered full swing, massive leases and loans dominated the news, but the sales market was active with a number of smaller deals.
TOP LEASES
The Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations and the New York Consulate General of Canada have consolidated offices with a 15-year, 77k SF lease for the 19th and 20th floors of 237 Park Ave (pictured). RXR Realty’s William Elder and Lauren Ferrentino repped the landlord in-house, while Savills Studley's David Goldstein and Greg Taubin repped the consulate. RXR bought the 1.2M SF building for $810M in October 2013 from Lehman Brothers Holdings, and then spent $50M renovating it. Tenants include JPMorgan Chase, Jennison Associates, J. Walter Thompson and New York-Presbyterian.
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Parkinson’s disease research nonprofit The Michael J. Fox Foundation signed an 86k SF lease for the 10th and 11th floors of Empire State Realty Trust’s 111 West 33rd St. ESRT recently moved its HQ to the 62-year-old, 651k SF property. The Lawrence Group's Brian Siegel repped the tenant, while Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s Erik Harris, Neil Rubin and Scott Klau repped ESRT.
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Architecture and design firm A+I signed a 10-year, 13k SF lease for the 11th floor of the 12-story 16 West 22nd St. Over its 12 years at 920 Broadway, the firm has grown from 22 to 70 architects, designers and strategists. The new office can accommodate about 90 employees. Colliers International's Michael Joseph and Michael Thomas repped the tenant, while Newmark Grubb Knight Frank's Barbara Yagoda repped the landlord, Meysar Realty.
Technology and design strategy firm Wipro Digital signed a 10-year, 19k lease for the 11th floor of Kushner Cos' 77 Sands St. Kushner leasing VP Daniel Bodner repped the landlord along with CBRE's Sacha Zarba and Jeff Fischer, while Cushman & Wakefield's Yarden Drimmer and Matthew Fisher repped the tenant. Currently occupying 8k SF at 18 East 16th St, Wirpo will share its new space with Designit, a Copenhagen-based design firm it acquired in 2015. Other tenants in the 54-year-old building—part of the six-property, 1.2M SF Dumbo Heights that Kushner Cos, LIVWRK and RFR Realty acquired for $375M in 2013—include high-end jeweler Alexis Bittar and WeWork.
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TKO Office Suites signed a 15-year, 21k SF lease for its third Manhattan location on the sixth and seventh floors of the 24-story, 211k SF 211 East 43rd St. Skylight Leasing's Elie Reiss repped TKO, which has locations at 353 West 48th St between and 42 Broadway. Avison Young's John Ryan III, A. Mitti Liebersohn, Anthony LoPresti and Henry Fuentes repped the landlords, Clarion Partners and Alchemy-ABR Investment Partners. Alchemy-ABR and Clarion purchased the building's leasehold for $99M from Meadow Partners. Sol Goldman's Solil Management owns the land.
US Bank signed a 68k SF sublease for a large chunk of MetLife's lease at 3 Bryant Park. The terms of the deal, which was brokered by a Cushman & Wakefield team led by Bruce Mosler, weren't disclosed. MetLife's lease at the 1.2M SF soon-to-be-named Salesforce Tower runs until 2029, but has been mostly taken over by Salesforce and now US Bank. Now, only the 16th, 39th and 40th floors are available for sublease.
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Jaguar Land Rover North America signed a 147k SF lease for an office building at 1 Sharp Plaza in Mahwah, NJ. JLL's David Stifelman, Scott Stange, Scott Lesh, Joseph Garibaldi and Dan Breen repped Jaguar, which will also construct a 30k SF state-of-the-art training center at the site. The landlord, the Becker Organization, was repped in-house by Becker founder/CEO Bryan Becker.
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Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, one of the largest law firms in the United States, extended its 28k SF lease for the eighth floor of Jack Resnick & Sons’ 250 Hudson St in the Hudson Square neighborhood. The firm has been at the 15-story, 400k SF building since 2008, following a $40M renovation and conversion from an industrial printing building into a Class-A office tower, and will remain there until 2029. CBRE's David Kleinhandler repped Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, while Jack Resnick & Sons' Dennis Brady and Brett Greenberg repped the ownership in-house.
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Two tenants have leased a total of 8k SF at George Comfort & Sons’ 575 Lexington Ave, with commercial lender Emerald Creek Capital leasing a seven-year, 5k SF lease and business services firm Murray Analytics signing a three-year, 3k SF lease. George Comfort & Sons bought the 745k SF building with Angelo Gordon & Co and Normandy Real Estate Partners last year for $510M.
TOP SALES
Ares Management sold the The Apthorp's 70 rental units on 390 West End Ave in the Upper West Side to Thor Equities and Michael Fascitelli’s Imperial Cos for $112M. Thor and Imperial will rent out 10 units at market rate once they become vacant, and convert the remaining 60 units into condos for sale. All of the units at the 108-year-old building have 11-foot ceilings and can be as large as 3,500 SF.
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Brooklyn-based investor Benzion Kohn sold a 279k SF elevator building at 975 Walton Ave in the Bronx to Thor Equities for $44M. This will be Thor's first purchase in the Bronx; the company views it as "an undervalued market with a potential for price appreciation." The six-story, 180-unit building was built in 1927 and has three retail units totaling 1k SF.
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Jon Colsky and Juan Figueroa sold a four-story, 25k SF hostel at 249 Varet St in East Williamsburg to Brooklyn developer and homeless shelters owner David Levitan for $21M. The shuttered property will become the city’s newest 140-bed homeless shelter for single senior men.
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Educational Alliance sold a seven-story former drug and alcohol treatment center at 371 East 10th St in the East Village to Stellar Management and Terrence Lowenberg’s Icon Realty Management for $14.4M. Icon and Stellar plan to covert the facility at 371 East 10th St into a 22-unit residential building.
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The Rockefeller International Group sold a vacant, five-story commercial building at 151 West 48th St to Solil Management for $13M. The building sits next door to a seven-story parking garage where Extell Development is developing a Hard Rock Hotel. The building offers up to 19k BSF of residential and 23k BSF for commercial space.
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Epner Technologies, which has made plating technology for NASA and coated this year’s Oscar awards, sold a block-long, three-story, 23k SF industrial office and warehouse at 78-92 Kingsland Ave in Williamsburg to Brooklyn investor Joseph Brunner and Abe Mandel’s Bruman Realty for $12.5M. The two also purchased two warehouses at 347 Flushing Ave and 361 Flushing Ave in East Williamsburg for $11.2M.
Meadow Partners sold a first-floor, 14k SF office condo at 866 United Nations Plaza (pictured) to the Baha’is of the US for $12.4M.
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West 20th St Realty LLC sold a seven-story, 8k SF elevator building at 209 West 20th St in Chelsea to a private investor for $11.6M. The building, built in 2004, has 12 market-rate apartments and a one-bedroom penthouse with a roof deck.
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1459 Realty Associates LLC has sold the five-story, 24k SF 1459 Taylor Ave in the Bronx to a private investor for $4.5M. The 1930 walk-up building has 30 apartments—12 two-bedrooms and 18 one-bedrooms—and a $256k annual NOI.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
MetLife closed on a $100M loan to ABS Partners Real Estate to refinance the 20-story, 265k SF 915 Broadway in the Flatiron District. The loan replaces a $60M mortgage from JPMorgan Chase and includes a $40M gap mortgage. ABS has held a 15% stake in the building since 1981, and paid $130M in 2012 to take full control of the property.
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United Overseas Bank has closed on a $98M mortgage to the Kaufman Organization and an affiliate of China Orient Asset Management for the recapitalization of the firms’ Madison Square Portfolio, which is composed of four office properties—119-125 West 24th St, 19 West 24th St, 13-15 West 27th St and 45 West 27th St—totaling 353k SF.
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ACORE Capital originated a $66M, five-year first mortgage and Vanbarton Group provided a $39M mezzanine loan to S. Lawrence Davis' Shorewood Real Estate Group for the construction of The Assemblage/17John, a $160M mixed-use development at 17 John St in the Financial District. Once completed, the building will be 15 stories tall, have 81 furnished apartments and 45k SF of co-working spread over five floors.
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New York Community Bank closed on a $110M loan to Harbor Group International and Azure Partners for their purchase of Eaves Nanuet, a 504-unit, 54-acre, 64-building multifamily community in the town of Nanuet in Rockland County, NY.
