Developer Michael Shvo partnered with an array of local and global investors to arrange $240 million of equity and debt for the acquisition and development of a site at 125 Greenwich Street where he plans to build a soaring condominium tower. The complex deal closed today.
Shvo brought on David Bizzi’s firm Bizzi & Partners as co-developer, and obtained additional equity from Howard Lorber’s investment company New Valley as well as an unidentified Chinese public company. The total equity investment for the Lower Manhattan project is approximately $70 million.
A Singapore bank along with an Indian private equity firm provided $170 million in debt, sources told The Real Deal.
A partnership of Fisher Brothers and the Witkoff Group sold the site to Shvo for $185 million, slightly higher than the price previously reported. That deal was brokered by HFF’s Andrew Scandalios and Jeff Julien.
Howard Michaels’ Carlton Group brokered the debt and equity financing. Michaels and Shvo declined to comment.
Where Fisher and Witkoff planned to build a 956-foot tall rental tower with 359,130 square feet, Shvo is planning to take that same building size but stretch it taller, sources told TRD. One insider explained that as a condo tower, the ceiling heights would be taller, thus increasing the overall height on the site that has no height restriction.
The site is at the corner of Greenwich and Thames streets. Lower Manhattan is undergoing a long-anticipated transformation from a mostly financial office district to a residential, retail and tourist neighborhood, as well.
The site is three blocks south of the World Trade Center site. As just one sign of the changes, retail-focused investor Thor Equities paid $31 million for three retail condo units across the street at 120 Greenwich Street.
Shvo in partnership with Victor Homes recently broke ground on the so-called Getty gas station parcel at 239 10th Avenue in Chelsea; and construction is expected to begin early next year on the largest residential project in Soho, at 100 Varick Street, where his partners are Erez Itzhaki, Halpern Real Estate Ventures, Bizzi & Partners and Aronov Development.