River House club to pay $45M for space listed at $130M

The private club inside River House will pay only $45 million to hold onto its five-story premises, a far cry from the $130 million that the property was asking when it was listed as a private home. The listing was pulled once the nonprofit club and the building’s co-op board signed a letter of intent regarding the sale, as The Real Deal reported.

Brown Harris Stevens’ Kyle Blackmon and John Burger, who were marketing the listing, had let buyers know the space could be snapped up for $90 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. But the building’s co-op board turned down an offer in that range after the club upped its bid to $45 million, far more than it had offered in earlier talks, according to the newspaper. Sources told The Real Deal that the move to list the space had given the co-op board significant leverage in its talks with the club.

“I don’t think what they did is terrifically unusual,” said Donna Olshan, who noted that “in commercial real estate, you look for solutions on how to best position a space.”

A majority of the building’s residents are also members of the club, which has yet to arrange the necessary funds for the acquisition, according to the newspaper. [WSJ]  – Hiten Samtani