This Week's N.Y. Deal Sheet
There were a handful of leases of significance in New York last week, including yet another Hudson Yards office lease larger than 100K SF, and a few refinancing deals, but the property markets were oddly quiet in the week leading up to the Jewish high holidays.
TOP LEASES
Shake Shack, the fast-casual burger joint that got its start with a stand at Madison Square Park, is moving its global headquarters to, and opening a new flagship restaurant and test kitchen at, 225 Varick St. in the West Village. Trinity Hudson Holdings owns the 12-story, 377K SF building, where Shack Shake plans to move its operations to 27K SF split across three floors, with the test kitchen below grade, the restaurant at ground level and offices on the third floor. Cushman & Wakefield's Mark Weiss led the tenant representation, while CBRE's Paul Amrich represented the landlord in the 15-year lease.
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Guardian Life Insurance is the latest big tenant to take space in Hudson Yards, signing a 148K SF sublease in the 740K SF office Coach commissioned in 10 Hudson Yards, the only building to open so far in Related and Oxford Property Group's megaproject. Coach sold its condo to Allianz last year in a $707M sale-leaseback deal. The sublease reportedly will run until 2036, uncommonly long for a deal of its nature. Guardian Life will move to Hudson Yards from its Financial District space at 7 Hanover Square. It owns that building, and is marketing it for sale as it prepares to leave.
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Group Nine Media, the company that owns millennial-oriented media brands like Thrillist and NowThis, is expanding in a major way. It renewed its 40K SF lease at 568 Broadway in SoHo and agreed to expand by 60K SF in the 10th and 11th floors in the 12-story, 342K SF building. Aurora Capital Associates and Allied Partners own the building and were represented in the renewal/expansion by JLL's Steven Bauer and Howard Hersch, while Group Nine was represented by Derrick Ades and Tim Dempsey. Asking rent in the five-year deal was $85/SF.
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Shared workspace provider Knotel has kept up its leasing activity in the city, signing a lease for 26K SF at 9 Times Square and immediately agreeing to lease and manage a large piece of that space to Bauer Media. Newmark Knight Frank's David Falk, Eric Cagner, Jason Greenstein and Matthew Siegel represented the landlord, American Realty Capital New York City REIT, in the deal for the fifth, seventh and ninth floors of the building. Knotel was represented by Savills Studley's Gabriel Marans, John Mambrino and Jordan Weiss.
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Financial technology companies Misys and D+H merged earlier this summer, and the result of their merger, a new company called Finastra, is moving into penthouse office space. Finastra had 23,500 SF at RFR Realty's 285 Madison Ave., but Tuesday morning the landlord announced the company was expanding into the 11K SF penthouse in the Midtown office property. JLL's Alexander Chudnoff, Mitchell Konsker, Dan Turkewitz and Diana Biasotti joined RFR's AJ Camhi in representing the landlord, and CBRE's Jon Sarkisian, Neil King and Emily Jones represented Finastra. Finastra will occupy the top floor in the building Tommy Hilfiger made its new home earlier this year.
TOP SALES
RXR and SL Green, two of Manhattan's most powerful landlords, joined forces for one of New York's biggest property transactions in 2017, shelling out $828M for a 48.7% stake in One Worldwide Plaza, the skyscraper New York REIT has been trying to sell for more than a year. The deal valued the building, of which NYRT will still own a controlling stake, at $1.7B.
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The Naftali Group made a move on the Upper West Side, acquiring a five-story mixed-use building for $21.1M. The six-unit apartment building was sold by a partnership of Albert Monasebian and Yusuf Bildirici, which acquired it for $15M in 2014. The property, at 1085 Madison Ave., has retail on its first two floors.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
In the biggest financing deal to cross the wires last week, Princeton International Properties, Dune Real Estate Partners and Empire Capital Holdings refinanced their Plaza District office property at 111 East 59th St. for a total of $195M. The biggest loan was for $154M, provided by LoanCore Capital Credit REIT. The new debt will likely go to the ongoing renovations at the property.
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Two Trees Management secured a $100M refinancing for its DUMBO office building at 55 Washington St., the same building where the company lured Vice Media to open a new, 73K SF office last year. The debt was provided by Wells Fargo.
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Meringoff Properties has secured $85M in new debt after refinancing a previous loan on 401 Park Ave. South, the 12-story Midtown South building partially occupied by a WeWork. Signature Bank provided the debt, which refinanced a $50M Capital One loan from 2012. The office property, and many like it in Midtown South, is fully occupied.
Financing data courtesy of Reonomy.
