Hidrock wins $40M Herald Square building

Abraham Hidary’s Hidrock Realty won the 100,000-square-foot office property at 960 Sixth Avenue in Herald Square this week in a long-expected foreclosure auction nearly eight months after his company bought a defaulted senior mortgage on the property for about $40 million.

While Hidrock has been operating the building for months now, taking title removes ambiguity about ownership.

Midtown-based real estate owner and brokerage Hidrock won the property at the scheduled auction at New York State Supreme Court in Lower Manhattan Wednesday.

Hidary, president of Hidrock, is considering a variety of options for the 16-story property located between 35th and 36th streets, now vacant except for one office tenant on the second floor. It also includes 5,200 square feet of retail, which is also vacant.

Options include hotel use, office use or a combination of the two. He is already talking with some hotel operators.

“There are a couple we are negotiating with, but [we have] not chosen one yet,” he said.

Hidrock bought the note with a face value of $95.1 million for about $40 million in October 2009 from Société Générale.

The French lender provided the $95.1 million loan to Italian real estate firm Statuto Group, which paid $105 million for the property in July 2007 but defaulted on the loan after expecting rents in the $60 per foot range, but tenants are now paying about $40 per foot.