Giant Partnership: Blackstone Buying 49% Of Brookfield's Downtown Skyscraper
Two giants in the world of real estate investment are now in bed together in the Financial District.
Brookfield has agreed to sell a 49% stake of its One Liberty Plaza office building to Blackstone in a deal that values the building at just over $1.5B, the New York Post reports. Blackstone paid roughly $660/SF for its large minority share in the 54-story, 2.3M SF building.
Though the Hudson Yards district is drawing the loudest buzz for luring office tenants, the Financial District has also been gaining ground on Midtown. One Liberty Plaza is 94% leased after recent deals with Business Insider, New Avon and the New York City Economic Development Corp. Nearby, the World Trade Center continues to rise and fill with tenants such as Spotify.
One Liberty Plaza was built to house US Steel in the 1970s — hence the distinctive facade of exposed steel — and purchased by Brookfield in the 1990s. The company enlisted Cushman & Wakefield's Doug Harmon and Adam Spies to market the property in October, and the big sale will provide a major revenue infusion that will assist in other projects, such as its Manhattan West development in Hudson Yards.
Brookfield and Blackstone might be partnering on this building, but the two are locked in a race as the top real estate asset managers in the world.
