This Week's N.Y. Deal Sheet
After months of relative inactivity, the Manhattan office leasing market took off like a rocket this week, with several major deals coming across the wire within hours of each other. To top it off, one of the biggest single-asset refinancing deals in New York City history closed this week.
TOP LEASES
Mizuho Americas has signed a 140K SF lease at 1271 Sixth Ave., Rockefeller Group's $600M renovation of the Time-Life Building. Mizuho, a subsidiary of Japanese Mizuho Financial Group, follows Major League Baseball and The New York Times in leasing up some of the 2.1M SF vacancy Time Inc.'s departure left. CBRE's Mary Ann Tighe, Howard Fiddle and John Maher repped Rockefeller, along with an in-house team led by Ed Guiltinan. Savills Studley's Mitchell Steir, Matthew Barlow and Steve Berliner repped Mizuho, which is taking the second and third floors, along with some subterranean space, for around $80/SF.
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At 55 Hudson Yards, private equity firm Silver Lake has closed on its long-rumored lease to take 56K SF and move from Sheldon Solow's 9 West 57th St. The $24B firm is joining the western procession of finance firms; it will share its new home, co-developed by Oxford Properties and Related Cos. and co-owned by Mitsui Fudosan, with Point72 Asset Management and MarketAxxess, among others. The building is more than 60% leased, and still more than a year away from opening.
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ITN Holdings, a firm that connects advertisers to ad space sellers, is growing its office at William Kaufman Organization's 747 Third Ave., growing from 35K SF to 50K SF in an expansion-renewal. Formerly known as ITN Networks, the firm agreed to stay in the building it has occupied for three decades. Michael Lenchner Sage Realty Corp., WKO's leasing arm, repped the landlord, which also signed three small leases totaling 10K SF this week. Savills Studley's Ira Schuman and Daniel Horowitz repped ITN.
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Luxury retailer Vince Camuto's parent company is consolidating two Midtown offices into one 42K SF spread at 1407 Broadway, owned by Shorenstein Properties. VCS Group, repped by Coldwell Banker's Jeffrey Rosenblatt, is moving out of offices at 148 West 37th St. and 141 West 36th St. and will occupy most of the third floor for 10 years, starting in spring 2018. CBRE's team of Peter Turchin, Gregg Rothkin, Brett Shannon, Ben Fastenberg, Keith Caggiano and Ross Zimbalist repped Shorenstein, which is pouring $30M into building renovations.
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Architecture and design firm CetraRuddy has signed an 11-year, 23K SF lease at One Battery Park Plaza in Lower Manhattan, owned by the Rudin family and Allianz Real Estate. CetraRuddy is moving Downtown from SoHo, where it will vacate its office at 584 Broadway in late 2017. In the same building, nonprofit Global Impact Investing Network has signed for a 9,200 SF spread on the second floor. Rudin Vice President Kevin Daly repped the landlord in-house on both deals, while CetraRuddy was repped by Colliers International's Michael Cohen and Andrew Roos and GIIN was repped by Zachary Price and Ramsey Feher of CBRE.
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Interior Architects is joining the wave of office users moving to Downtown Manhattan. The firm is leaving its Midtown South offices at 237 Park Ave. S for just under 18K SF at 100 Broadway, owned by Northwood Investors and repped by Hal Stein, Andrew Peretz and Travis Wilson of Newmark Knight Frank. JLL's Andrew Coe and Michael Higgings repped IA.
TOP SALES
One of the most active investors in Brooklyn has made another deal. Cheskie Weisz's CW Realty Management has paid $35.5M to acquire 61 North 11th St. in North Williamsburg, a 50K SF factory between Kent and Wythe avenues. Eleven North Capital sold the building, and Cushman & Wakefield represented both the buyer and the seller in a deal that went for about $8M below asking price. Weisz recently bought a 40K SF development site near 61 North 11th and also paid $14M for an artist haven in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
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The developers of a new condo building in Hell's Kitchen have sold the project for $34M while most of the units are still on the market. David Paz's Omnia Group developed 351 West 54th St. with Naveh Shuster and Northwind Group, and the trio sold it to Bentley Zhao's New Empire Real Estate Development last week. Brooklyn-based New Empire is all-in on the NYC condo market, with developments in Hell's Kitchen as well as in Brooklyn, and now this acquisition, trying to profit on sell-out alone.
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Zhao was a buyer on the second-biggest deal of the week, but a seller on a smaller development site trade. New Empire sold a Hell's Kitchen site to Coram Deo Church for just over $15M. The plot of land, at 409 West 45th St., is approved for a condominium project, but it is now owned by a church. For his entitlement efforts, Zhao was able to sell the site for about $10M more than he paid for it in 2014.
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The New York City School Construction Authority has paid $15M for the site of its next project, a pre-kindergarten center in Brooklyn's Gowanus neighborhood. The tract, at 197 Ninth St., has been slated for the school since 2015, and is rumored to be the site of a centuries-old mass grave.
Sales data courtesy of Reonomy.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
Boston Properties refinanced the General Motors Building at 767 Fifth Ave., one of the world's most valuable properties, with a $2.3B loan package led by Wells Fargo. Boston Properties owns 60% of the 50-story skyscraper and led the refinancing on behalf of the ownership group, which will use the new loan to retire $1.7B in debt that was maturing in the fall.
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One of Boston Properties' biggest REIT competitors, Vornado, also secured a major financing this week, scoring a $500M loan for the office piece of 731 Lexington Ave., known as Bloomberg Tower. The 56-story tower was built in 2005, and the new loan is through Deutsche Bank, according to property records, and the German bank loaned Vornado $300M on the office space in 2014.
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Orda Management, in the third enormous financing deal registered with the city last week, secured $430M in loans to refinance 233 Park Ave. South with Barclays. The new debt replaces $217M from the New York State Teachers Retirement System, and it was brokered by Newmark Knight Frank Capital Group.
Financing data courtesy of Reonomy.
