This Week's N.Y. Deal Sheet
Midtown saw an outsized share of a swath of Manhattan office leases as New York City's leasing activity continued to recover in the first week of March.
TOP LEASES
The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women renewed its lease with SL Green at 220 East 42nd St., signing on for another 10 years, according to a release from the landlord. UN Women has an 85,500 SF spread across the 17th through 20th floors; the asking rent in the renewal was undisclosed. Cushman & Wakefield’s Chris Helgesen and JRT Realty’s Greg Smith and Jodi Pulice represented UN Women in the deal. Cushman & Wakefield’s Anthony LoPresti, Barry Zeller, Harry Blair, Justin Royce and Tara Stacom represented SL Green.
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The Durst Organization’s 42-story building at 1155 Avenue of the Americas has two new long-term tenants. American Equity Investment Life Insurance Co. and financial services firm Robert W. Baird & Co. each leased 17K SF in the building, with American Equity Investment taking space on the 35th floor for 10 years. Baird, which has rented space in the building since 2017, signed up for 12 years on the 36th floor. JLL’s Henry Warner and William Korchak represented Baird. Donald Preate, also from JLL, represented American Equity. Asking rents were $110 per SF.
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Fertility benefit company Progyny inked a deal for just over 70K SF of office space at 1359 Broadway, with asking rents around in the mid-$60 per SF range, Commercial Observer reported. The 13-year lease gives the tenant three floors in the building, where it has occupied 25K SF on a sublease since 2019. Shanae Ursini and Jordan Berger represented landlord Empire State Realty Trust in-house, alongside CBRE’s Paul Amrich, Emily Chabrier, Neil King and Meghan Allen. Progyny had representation from Newmark’s David Falk, Kyle Ciminelli and Dylan Weisman.
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Edward J. Minskoff Equities landed several new lease deals spanning 52K SF for its 590 Madison Ave. property, with asking rents of between $125 and $145 per SF, according to a release from CBRE. Steve Siegel, Evan Haskell, Brett Shannon, James Ackerson and Taylor Scheinman represented the landlord, along with Minskoff's Jeffrey Sussman.
CBRE also acted on behalf of the three tenants signing the largest leases. Almost 14K SF of the 29th floor went to private equity firm Reverence Capital Partners, with representation by Dan Wilpon, while financial services company E.F. Hutton was represented by Ryan Alexander and leased a little over 11K SF. Investment banking firm Consello, with representation from Matthew McBride, took just under 10K SF.
Latin American investment management firm Compass Group signed up for over 7K SF and Nexans Group, an infrastructure manager, took more than 3K SF. Colliers’ David Kaplansky provided representation for Compass, and JLL’s TJ Hochanadel worked on behalf of Nexans.
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Celebrity chef Todd English signed a 20K SF lease on 15 Park Row, the New York Post reports. The space, owned by Atlas Capital Group, is at the bottom of a Financial District residential building and may serve as a restaurant or food hall for the chef — the upcoming concept wasn't disclosed. The asking annual rent was $2.5M, per the Post, with a term of between 14 and 16 years. The concept will fill the longstanding vacancy left by the J&R Music World in 2013.
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Fragrance brand Le Labo has signed a 16K SF lease across three stories to bring 71 North Seventh St. fully occupied once it moves in during the summer, Commercial Observer reports. Largo Investments owns the 21K SF building and was represented by CBRE in the deal.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
Black Spruce Management and Orbach Affordable Housing Solutions scored a $675M loan from JPMorgan Chase to finance their acquisition of the American Copper Buildings. Cushman & Wakefield’s Gideon Gil and Zachary Kraft represented the joint venture, which will use the funding to finance its $837M acquisition of the two high-rise residential buildings with on-site retail. The two buildings, which are connected by a skybridge and combined have 761 units, are located at 26 First Ave.
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Rabina Properties secured a $540M construction debt package to finance construction at 520 Fifth Ave., according to a press release. Bank OZK put up $410M as a senior mortgage, with a further $130M of mezzanine financing coming from investment firm Carlyle Group’s global credit arm. The mixed-use luxury property, which would feature luxury residences and office space and rise to nearly 1,000 feet, will be the second-tallest building on Fifth Avenue once construction finishes, second only to the Empire State Building. Christopher Peck, Geoff Goldstein, Evan Pariser, Marko Kazanjian, Alex Staikos and Madison Warwick of JLL Capital Markets represented Rabina.
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Rubenstein Partners has scored a $178M loan from Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance to refinance 25 Kent Ave., Commercial Observer reports. The 500K SF mixed-use building was the first ground-up, Class-A office development in Brooklyn in decades when it opened in March 2020. A Newmark team of Ben Kroll, Chris Kramer, Dustin Stolly, Holden Witkoff, Jordan Roeschlaub and Nick Scribani brokered the debt package.
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JP Morgan Chase has lent $28M to Storage Post Self Storage to help fund the $64M purchase of a Bronx self-storage site from developer Wildflower, Commercial Observer reports. Wildflower, which has played an active role as a parking and warehouse developer for Amazon in NYC, said the deal was in line with its plans to focus on e-commerce and film rather than warehouses. The property, which has more than 3,000 self-storage units and almost 22K SF of parking space, is located at 3350 Park Ave. in Morrisania. Skyview Advisors brokered the deal.
TOP SALES
BEB Capital paid $55M for a Manhattan multifamily development at 312-316 East 30th St., the company announced in a press release. The almost 57K SF property in Kips Bay, known as Ivy 30, has 66 residential units in addition to commercial space. BEB was represented in-house by Lee Brodsky, Keyvan Ghaytanchi and Ben Fischer, while seller A.D. Real Estate Investors was represented by Andrew Natter and Harold Fuchs of brokerage Collaborative Group NYC.
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Apollo Global Management is shelling out more than $200M to buy its future Greenwich, Connecticut, office from current owner Rockpoint Group, The Real Deal reports. The private equity firm is reportedly buying the 155K SF property, located at 100 West Putnam Ave., as part of the company’s talent retention plan. The building — which Rockpoint bought in 2018 for $130M — is home to tenants including AXA, JPMorgan, Strategic Value Partners and UBS. Apollo CEO Marc Rowan worked personally on the deal, alongside in-house representation from the company’s real estate arm in Phillip Mintz and Nick Doering Dorival, according to TRD. The sale was brokered by Eastdil Secured.
