Manhattan top recipient of Chinese commercial investment in U.S.

Investors from the world’s most populous nation poured more money into commercial properties in Manhattan and other New York City boroughs than any other American market, according to commercial real estate research firm Real Capital Analytics.

In total, Chinese commercial investments nationwide jumped from $335.3 million in 2012 to almost $3 billion last year, according to Real Capital — and those numbers exclude the total value of projects like Atlantic Yards, whose development span several years. The influx comes as Chinese builders gravitate toward American cities’ relatively stable and predictable population growth, and as China’s government loosens restrictions on direct investment overseas, according to Bloomberg.

One of China’s biggest investors in U.S. real estate is the state-owned Greenland Holding Group, which at the end of last year to pay $200 million for a 70 percent stake in development firm Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards, as previously reported. Meanwhile, another Chinese developer, China Vanke, is teaming up with New York City developer Aby Rosen to deliver a 61-story luxury condo building at 610 Lexington Avenue next to Rosen’s Seagram Building. [Bloomberg] — Angela Hunt