This Week's N.Y. Deal Sheet
August is supposed to be the slow season for business. It would appear New York City commercial real estate professionals have decided as a group to not go on vacation, because multiple big leases in Manhattan hit the wire last week, and into this week, and the pace is not slowing down.
TOP LEASES
The Paramount Group landed a 106K SF relocation of Travel Leaders Group Elite Division's headquarters at the real estate firm's own headquarters building, 1633 Broadway. Travel Leaders will consolidate its companies, Tzell Travel Group and Protravel International, from seven floors in two buildings, 119 West 40th St. and 515 Madison Ave., to two floors in Midtown. Tzell and Protravel will occupy the 35th and 36th floors of the building, respectively, when they start their 16 and a half year lease in June 2018. Colliers International's Robert Tunis and Eric Ferriello repped the tenant, and CBRE's Stephen Siegel, Paul Amrich, Patrice Meagher, Rob Hill, Howard Fiddle and Emily Jones repped Paramount, along with Doug Neye in-house.
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Accenture inked what will be one of the benchmark leases of Q3 last week when it agreed to occupy the top eight floors of One Manhattan West, Brookfield's under-construction office project at its Far West Side megaproject. Accenture will consolidate its 3,000 New York employees into 250K SF, which it is calling an Innovation Hub, of the 67-story, 2.1M SF office tower. CBRE's Ken Rapp, Anthony Dattoma and Michael Dash repped Accenture, and Cushman & Wakefield's Bruce Mosler, Josh Kuriloff, Rob Lowe, Ethan Silverstein and Matthias Li repped Brookfield alongside in-house leasing agents Jeremiah Larkin, Duncan McCuaig and Alex Liscio.
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Apollo Global Management is moving its Fifth Avenue headquarters to a space overlooking Bryant Park. Apollo will sublease 70K SF from MetLife in the green-clad 3 Bryant Park, also known as Salesforce Tower, moving its operations from the Crown Building. The space was the last piece of the 400K SF MetLife vacated, according to The Real Deal. C&W's Mosler and John Sefaly repped MetLife, while CBRE's Siegel and Keith Caggiano repped Apollo.
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Estée Lauder has renewed two big office leases in Midtown East, shrinking its total real estate footprint, but keeping about 437K SF in two buildings. At Boston Properties' General Motors Building, the fashion brand renewed its lease for 220K SF, shrinking from 295K SF. At Jack Resnick & Sons' 110 East 59th St., Estée Lauder is keeping all of its 217K SF lease, which was set to expire in May, for another 20 years, according to the Commercial Observer.
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Yelp is expanding its Midtown South offices by 40K SF as the San Francisco-based reviews giant continues its corporate growth. Yelp will grow its footprint in SL Green and PGIM's 11 Madison Ave. to 192K SF and expand its territory to a part of the 17th floor in the 29-story, 2.3M SF property. Its lease, at $95/SF, expires in 2025, and brings the building to 100% occupancy. SL Green was repped in-house by Natasha Brown and David Kaufman, and CBRE's Scott Gamber repped Yelp.
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Sandow has signed a sublease to move from 1271 Sixth Ave., the former Time Life building the Rockefeller Group is repositioning as a trophy office, to H.J. Kalikow & Co.'s 101 Park Ave. The magazine publisher will occupy 42K SF, growing from 39K SF, of Advance Finance Group's space, a sister company to Condé Nast under parent Advance Publications. Asking rents in the deal were in the $60s/SF, and it was brokered by Newmark Knight Frank's David Falk and Jason Greenstein on the tenant side and Douglas Elliman Commercial's Peter Gross and Jim Gross on the sublandlord side.
TOP SALES
A 150K SF office condo in Tribeca is the first piece of New York REIT's portfolio, currently being liquidated, to officially sell. At 50 Varick St., the office condo has sold to Est4te Four, an Italian firm that most recently sold off a big industrial portfolio in Red Hook, Brooklyn, after a failed attempt at an office conversion. The condo sold for $135M in a deal brokered by Cushman & Wakefield's Adam Spies, Doug Harmon, Kevin Donner and Adam Doneger.
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The Brodsky Organization has acquired the controlling interest of a 23-story affordable rental apartment tower in Downtown Brooklyn's City Point mixed-use project. Acadia Realty Trust and Washington Square Partners jointly developed the property, called 7 DeKalb, with BFC Partners, and sold their shares to Brodsky. BFC still controls its minority stake in the property.
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Sugar Hill Capital Partners has paid $41M to acquire a six-story apartment building in Washington Heights from Rudd Realty Management. The 95-unit property is at 200 Haven Ave. and is 76 years old.
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Calvary World Mission Church has sold its Flushing, Queens, facility to Regent Medical Properties, acting on behalf of Hajjar Medical Office, for $19M. The property, at 13525 Northern Blvd., will be torn down and replaced with a 98K SF medical office building.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
Brookfield, which signed the biggest new office lease last week, also secured the biggest financing deal in the city. The Canadian real estate giant closed on a $784M loan from Morgan Stanley for One Liberty Plaza, the 2.2M SF office tower it owns in Lower Manhattan. The loan replaces $850M in debt with Goldman Sachs that was set to expire Tuesday.
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The biggest new construction loan of the week, and one of the biggest of the summer so far, went to a condo tower, already being built by Ceruzzi Properties and its Chinese equity partner, SMI USA. Madison Realty Capital lent the JV $300M to finish construction on the 803-foot-tall, 72-story tower at 138 East 50th St.
