Stellar in contract to buy Soho office buildings

Laurence Gluck’s Stellar Management is in contract to buy four Soho properties including two office buildings, the 320,000-square-foot 161 Sixth Avenue, and the 250,000-square-foot 233 Spring Street, along with two smaller neighboring parcels, recent city property records show.

Gluck signed the purchase contract with representatives of property owner Earle W. Kazis Associates Dec. 9. The parties have until April 11 to close the sale, the public records say. No purchase price is included.

Stellar declined to comment. Earle W. Kazis Associates did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In addition to the two office buildings, the contract includes 231 Spring Street, a 20-foot-wide, single-story building with 43,210 square feet of development rights, and 24 Vandam Street, a 24-foot by 100-foot vacant lot with 25,000 square feet of development rights, according to PropertyShark.com.

The larger building, 161 Sixth Avenue between Spring and Vandam streets, is a 15-story, Class B building constructed in about 1903, with tenants such as intellectual property law firm Donovan & Yee, information from property data firm CoStar Group shows.

The other large building, 233 Spring Street, between Varick Street and Sixth Avenue, which is the home to the Aveda Institute New York, a beauty care school.

One commercial sales broker, who was not familiar with the properties so did not want to be identified, estimated such a property would be worth about $350 per square foot, which would yield a sale price for just the office buildings of about $200 million, although another suggested if the properties could be converted to residential they would be worth far more.

Both buildings were once home to printing and publishing companies, according to city records from 1974, when Kazis and his partner Ronald Mount bought the four parcels for an undisclosed sum.