This Week's N.Y. Deal Sheet
A large public sector lease and a new movie theater coming to Downtown Manhattan brightened up another slow week in New York City commercial real estate, one in which no sales bigger than $70M were completed.
TOP LEASES
The New York City Human Resources Administration is moving to what was once known as the ugliest building in the city, but what is now being called Intergate.Manhattan. The former Verizon Building, at 375 Pearl St., has been a monolith in Lower Manhattan for years, but owner Sabey Data Center Properties and partner Youngwoo & Associates are giving it plenty of glass and signing city agencies left and right for the affordable space. HRA is taking 200K SF in the building, below where the city Department of Finance signed for 180K SF last year. Asking rents in the building are below $50/SF. HRA is relocating from 250 Church St., which is being converted to residential. Cushman & Wakefield’s Bob Giglio and George Keller repped the tenant, and CBRE's Gregg Rothkin and Gerry Miovski repped Sabey and Youngwoo.
***
Alamo Drafthouse, the popular movie theater chain that allows viewers to order food and drinks to their seats, is opening its second location in New York City at 28 Liberty in the Financial District. The property was once known as Chase Manhattan Plaza and is now owned by Fosun Property Holdings, which is pouring $150M into the building's renovations, both on the ground and plaza levels and to the offices above. Earlier this year, the New York attorney general's office agreed to lease 345K SF in the skyscraper.
***
Software company Remedy Partners is leasing 29K SF at Penn Plaza in a deal for a sizable pre-built space, part of a growing trend of pre-builts drawing tenant interest. CBRE, whose brokers Peter Turchin, Jason Pollen, Dave Caperna and Hillary Whittier repped the landlord, Haymes Investment Co., said it might be the largest pre-built deal in the country. Remedy outgrew its current office at 275 Seventh Ave., owned by an affiliate of the AFL-CIO.
***
PR firm Communications Partners Group is reducing its office footprint by almost 50%, moving from 22,500 SF at 360 Madison Ave. to 15K SF at 1212 Sixth Ave. Both buildings are owned by Stawski Partners, but CPG's previous lease was through sublandlord Bank of Montreal. Asking rent was $70/SF. Savills Studley's Nick Farmakis and John Mambrino repped the tenant, and CBRE’s Ed Goldman, Sam Seiler and Derrick Ades repped the landlord.
***
Starlight Designs, a jewelry maker, is the latest company to sign a deal at The Factory in Long Island City. The brand is leasing 17K SF from landlords Atlas Capital Group, Square Mile Capital Management and Invesco Real Estate on the fifth floor of the 1.1M SF building. Starlight was repped by Kalmon Dolgin Affiliates' Jeffrey Unger, while Newmark Grubb Knight Frank's Jordan Gosin repped the landlord group.
TOP SALES
The Rabsky Group made the biggest purchase of the week, acquiring a three-story retail building at 633-635 Fulton St. for $68M. The property, acquired in a joint venture with Spencer Equity, will be combined with the adjacent site, where Rabsky is already planning a 36-story tower. The Real Deal reports the site is now eligible to be built by-right up at 770K SF. The Dollar Deal shop, which landlord Samuel Jemal sold, in the building will be closed and demolished.
***
Brandon House, an apartment building that provides housing for single women at 340 West 85th St., has traded hands for $42M. Volunteers of America owned and managed the building. New owner West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing will convert the building to senior housing, but kept as single room occupancy units.
***
Leser Group has closed on its acquisition of the 179-unit apartment building at 2009-2025 Seward Ave. in the Bronx. The deal was put under contract around Thanksgiving 2016 for $33.7M, but closed last week for $34.9M, according to property records. The seller was Gili Haberberg, who had owned the building since 2012, when it purchased it for $21.3M.
***
SL Development closed on its acquisition of the former Umbrella Factory in Williamsburg, at 722 Metropolitan Ave., for $23.3M. SL plans to turn the property into condominiums, but because of the L Train shutdown, the seller, Barnett Brickner, had to accept $3M below asking price.
Sales data courtesy of Reonomy.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
The owners of 70 Pine St., European-owned DTH Capital and Rose Associates, secured $375M in two separate mortgages, refinancing the construction loan the developers secured to convert the building into luxury apartments, a hotel and retail. The loans were broken into a senior mortgage and a mezzanine loan, and led by an affiliate of Brookfield.
***
Cove Property Group has closed on a $220M acquisition loan from Deutsche Bank to purchase 441 Ninth Ave., a 443K SF office building it bought from Emblem Health last year for $330M. The property is across from Brookfield's One Manhattan West, and Cove plans to add more than 100K SF of offices to the existing structure to take advantage of the neighborhood's stratospheric growth.
***
Gary Barnett's Extell Development has successfully increased a previous mortgage on an Upper East Side development site with lender Bank of the Ozarks. Last year, Barnett secured a $54.9M acquisition loan for 350 East 86th St., which he bought for $93M and planned to combine with adjoining plots for a 20-story condo building. Last week, Barnett and the bank agreed to increase the loan amount with a new, $85.3M mortgage, bringing the total debt on the assemblage of properties to $106.4M, according to property records.
***
BLDG Management has refinanced its loan on The Blake rental apartment building in the Lenox Hill neighborhood of Manhattan. BLDG secured a $65M mortgage from Principal Life Insurance for the 181-unit rental building at 220 East 63rd St., replacing a $90M loan that was set to mature this year.
Financing data courtesy of Reonomy.
