Is there anything more active than Scott Lawlor’s Broadway Partners?
The relentless real-estate investment firm is in contract to purchase another national portfolio from Beacon Capital Partners, which includes two Manhattan prizes, a source familiar with the deal said. The sale price for the portfolio is expected to be close to $5 billion.
The Partners’ newest city assets are the Park Avenue Atrium and 100 Wall Street.
The Park Avenue Atrium, at 237 Park Avenue, is at the corner of Lexington Avenue, between 45th and 46th streets. It is across the street from the MetLife Building and a few blocks from the Partners’ other treasured asset, 340 Madison Avenue.
The Atrium is 1.1 million square feet, and its main tenants include Bear Stearns and J Walter Thompson. As The Observer reported first, Bear Stearns recently expanded to more than 250,000 square feet in the building.
Broadway Partners, led by Mr. Lawlor, the C.E.O., will take over the 90 percent stake that Beacon had at 237 Park, a second source said. Monday Properties will remain as the minority owner at the building.
Meanwhile, the Partners’ other new city tower is at 100 Wall Street. The 29-story, 458,000-square-foot building is at the corner of
For Broadway Partners, this will be the second portfolio the company has purchased from Beacon in less than six months. The first portfolio sold for reportedly more than $3.3 billion and included the John Hancock building in Boston.
The San Francisco Business Times reported last week that Broadway Partners had purchased this second portfolio from Beacon.
But both Broadway and Beacon are remaining quiet for now.
“It’s our policy not to comment on deals that haven’t closed,” said Charles Millard, a managing director at Broadway Partners. A spokesman for Beacon also declined to comment.
The seven-year-old Broadway Partners keeps increasing its Manhattan profile. As The Observer reported, the real-estate firm is in contract to buy the 1.7-million-square-foot Daily News headquarters at 450 West 33rd Street.
Last year, Broadway purchased 340 Madison from Harry and Billy Macklowe for $550 million. The firm also owns 522 Fifth Avenue and 660 Madison Avenue.
TWO SECRETIVE AND AMBITIOUS DEVELOPERS, Joseph Chetrit and Baruch Singer, have struck a deal in midtown south.
Mr. Singer has sold Mr. Chetrit a series of buildings along Sixth Avenue for $140 million. The sale was recorded in city records.
Mr. Chetrit’s new purchase is made up of an office building and abandoned apartment buildings that are all between 30th and 31st streets. The block will almost undoubtedly be used for future development.
The site is between 855 and 871 Avenue of the Americas, in an unremarkable plot. Both 859 and 861 Avenue of the Americas are four stories each, with windows that are either blacked out or boarded up. Those buildings’ retail tenants are typical of the area: an Army & Navy store, a juice bar, a discount shoe store, and vacated retail space on the corner of 31st Street.
The sale also includes an office building at 855 Sixth Avenue, which is six stories and 126,400 square feet. The average asking rent is below market, at $29 per square foot in six available spaces, according to CoStar.
But! Mr. Chetrit must have a plan. In total, the buildings that he purchased are less than 175,000 square feet, and Mr. Chetrit certainly didn’t drop more than $800 a foot for a small office building and a pair of 85-year-old apartment buildings.
Mr. Chetrit wouldn’t comment for this story, so it is unclear what the development rights are. But when he plans to put something up, he’ll have some company. Directly across 30th Street, at 835 Sixth Avenue, the J.D. Carlisle Development Corporation has already cleared a construction site.
The seller, Mr. Singer, is the notoriously furtive landlord who has controlled some of the city’s poorest tenements. His buildings have famously been the home of a high number of code violations and fines—not to mention the fact that he was also the owner of a Harlem building that partially collapsed in 1995, leading to three deaths.
Mr. Chetrit, who is marketing the Toy Building on Fifth Avenue, has clearly been giving attention to his future investments. As The Observer reported last week, the developer purchased a pair of downtown buildings near the World Trade Center redevelopment site with bigger plans undoubtedly in mind.
And it was also Mr. Chetrit who sold Broadway Partners the Daily News’ headquarters at 450 West 33rd Street.
THE MAJORITY STAKE OF THE Mandarin Oriental is now officially in the hands of Dubai-based Istithmar.
The company paid $278 million for its portion of the hotel, according to city records.
Istithmar, which is controlled by the sheikdom’s ruling family, owns 73 percent of the hotel, according to a spokeswoman at the Related Companies. Mandarin Oriental Inc. will retain 25 percent, and Apollo and Related Companies will retain 2 percent.
Meanwhile, Istithmar recently closed on its $300 million sale of the former Knickerbocker hotel. It also paid $285 million for the W Hotel in Union Square.
