This Week's N.Y. Deal Sheet
The federal government may have briefly shut down over the weekend, but the deals in New York City never stop.
TOP LEASES
Flatiron Health is moving to a big new spread at the two-building One SoHo Square. The cancer research company has signed a 108K SF lease to fill four floors of the Stellar Management-owned east tower. Flatiron Health will relocate from its office at 200 Fifth Ave., across from Madison Square Park. Savills Studley's Zev Holzman, Brad Wolk, Herman Dodson and Brian Scharfman represented the tenant, while Newmark Knight Frank’s Brian Waterman, Andrew Peretz, David Malawer and Brent Ozarowski represented Stellar and its JV partner, Imperium Capital. Asking rents were reportedly between $80 and $120/SF.
***
Brookfield and The Swig Co. have signed office products designer and manufacturer Humanscale to a relocation at the landmark Grace Building. The curved 49-story tower overlooking Bryant Park will welcome Humanscale with a 10-year, 33K SF lease. Humanscale was represented by JLL's Deb van der Hayden and Paul Ferraro, while Brookfield was represented in-house by Duncan McCuaig and Alex Liscio, alongside Ken Rapp, Peter Turchin, Sara Pontius, Zak Snider and Cara Chayet of CBRE.
***
United Talent Agency has joined the ranks of New York City companies growing their footprints, adding more than 19K SF to its lease at 888 Seventh Ave. The LA-based agency will now occupy more than 62K SF in the building; before 2016, it had less than 20K SF. Landlord Vornado was represented in-house by Glen Weiss and Jared Solomon, and JLL’s Alexander Chudnoff, Mitchell Konsker and Benjamin Bass represented the agency.
TOP SALES
Salim Assa has sold 19 West 55th St., the Midtown apartment building over which he settled with the city for $1.2M for running an illegal hotel through Airbnb. Assa sold the 23-unit building, which has almost 8K SF of ground-floor retail, for $50M to Aview Equities. 15 West 55th St., the adjacent building that was included in the settlement, was not part of the sale.
***
New York REIT's liquidation continues with the sale of four commercial condominiums at 350 West 42nd St. The retail and garage space underneath the Orion residential building, leased to Starbucks and a small-format grocer, traded for $25.1M to HUBB NYC.
***
Mayo Associates joins the long list of sellers in the Bronx cashing out amid the rising tide of investor interest. Mayo sold three commercial properties, 448 East 189th St., 4734 Third Ave. and 4720 Third Ave., for $18M to a joint venture of Michael Ashkenazy and Peter Castellana.
Sales data courtesy of Reonomy
TOP FINANCING DEALS
Empire State Realty Trust has secured a $142.2M refinancing deal for its office tower at 1400 Broadway. Prudential Insurance provided the mortgage for the building, which landed a major win last fall when immigration law firm Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy signed an 108K SF lease in the building's eighth through 10th floors.
***
Savanna has nailed down a construction loan for its planned Morningside Heights condominium development at 525 West 122nd St. Deutsche Bank was the lender on a series of loans that combined provide the Park Avenue-based developer with $176M to finance the 32-story, 170-unit tower.
***
The second phase of the La Central affordable housing project in the Bronx, at 556 and 600 Bergen Ave., secured the biggest commercial loan of the week, a package of mortgages that combine for $335M. Developers The Hudson Cos., BRP Cos., ELH-TKC LLC, Breaking Ground and Comunilife landed the financing through the New York City Housing Development Corp. Eventually, the project will bring almost 1,000 affordable apartments to the Melrose section of the South Bronx.
Financing data courtesy of Reonomy
