MetLife is actively lending, providing a $350 million, five-year, fixed-rate mortgage for a joint venture between affiliates of Edge Fund Advisors and HSBC Alternative Investment at the Bertelsmann Building at 1540 Broadway through its real estate investments department among other investments, the company announced today.

“We are pleased to be providing financing for such a high quality asset as 1540 Broadway,” said Robert Merck, senior managing director and head of real estate investments for MetLife. “We originate, underwrite and manage each investment with a long-term view, and we are well positioned to identify and complete attractive financing opportunities in top-tier markets such as New York.” — Katherine Clarke [more]

HSBC Alternative Investments and Edge Fund Advisors said today that they have bought out the remaining 51 percent stake in the Bertelsmann building at 1540 Broadway, in an off-market transaction. The partners bought 49 percent of the building from CB Richard Ellis in November 2010, in a deal valued at $254 million, or $575 per square foot. CBRE had previously acquired the property in a fire sale from Macklowe Properties. Terms of new deal were confidential and could not be disclosed. Mark Keller, chairman and CEO of Edge Fund Advisors, said that the buyout was part of the original plan when the firm bought the 49 percent stake in 2010, but the current debt was not expected to mature until 2013, meaning the new deal was not expected to happen this soon. He said that low interest rates following the recent economic turmoil made the buyout more favorable to buy the stake out now rather than later. [more]

More and more of the big technology companies are interested in space in Manhattan, in particular because of their desire to be near the advertising companies on Madison Avenue, the New York Times reported. During the upcoming Advertising Week, Yahoo will be able to present its new offices in Viacom’s Times Square building to potential advertising clients, in a way that it wasn’t able to do before.

Yahoo’s Times Square suite at 1540 Broadway has purple-hued conference rooms, a lobby with custom graphics and door pulls shaped like exclamation points, and a dynamic design that are symbolic of a high-tech company. Comments

• Tweet

1540 Broadway

Edge Fund Advisors and HSBC Alternative Investments said they acquired a 49 percent stake in the Bertelsmann Building at 1540 Broadway from CB Richard Ellis Investors in a deal valued at $254 million or $575 per square foot.

CBRE, based in Los Angeles, acquired the office condominium portion of the property in March 2009 from Deutsche Bank for $355 million. That lender had acquired the distressed property from developer Harry Macklowe.

CB Richard Ellis will provide brokerage and leasing services for the building, which used to house Virgin Megastore. [more]

China’s government news agency, Xinhua, is planning a move to the
top floor of 1540 Broadway, between 45th and 46th streets, from its
current office in Woodside, Queens, according to the Wall Street
Journal. The relocation would also be an expansion for the agency,
which often serves as a propaganda outlet for the government and which
has recently been making efforts to step up its global coverage. Xinhua
would have a 20-year lease on the space that would become its North
American headquarters. Although it was unclear what the agency would
pay in rent, rates in Times Square office buildings are around $67 per
square foot, according to Reis. Xinhua wouldn’t be the only major new
tenant for the 44-story tower: a massive Forever 21 store just opened
in the retail space downstairs. The office portion is owned by a
private equity fund run by CBRE Investors, a CB Richard Ellis
affiliate, which purchased it for $355 million from Deutsche Bank AG
last year. [WSJ]

[more]

Click image for larger version of chart. At right, 1540 Broadway, the Disney store’s new home (source: PropertyShark)

While retail asking rents for most of Manhattan’s shopping corridors
were flat for the fourth quarter of 2009, there were double-digit
changes in Times Square where they rose sharply and Downtown where they
plunged, a new report by commercial services firm CB Richard Ellis
shows. Asking rents rose by 20 percent in the fourth quarter in Times Square,
with the addition of new space to the market priced above the average,
pushing it up to $1,000 per square foot from $800 per foot in the
earlier quarter, the CBRE report says. One of the largest leases signed
last quarter was by Disney which took 25,145 square feet at 1540
Broadway in Times Square. The steepest decline in Manhattan in the fourth quarter was Downtown on
Broadway from Battery Park to Chambers Street, where asking rents took
a 22 percent nosedive to $183 per foot from $234 per square foot in the
prior quarter, the data shows. [more]

444 Madison Avenue (source: PropertyShark)

From the January issue: New York City’s top commercial brokerages have jockeyed for market
share over the past few years, but in a surprise upset, Eastdil Secured
has emerged on top. According to an analysis by The Real Deal — which was based
on data provided by Real Capital Analytics for Manhattan commercial
transactions of $5 million and above — the firm had more than $15
billion in sales from the first quarter of 2007 through the third
quarter of 2009. CB Richard Ellis ranked second with more than $12 billion in
building sales, while Cushman & Wakefield ranked third with more
than $10 billion, according to the RCA data.
But Eastdil’s ranking is largely due to a unique set of circumstances:
The firm handled the $7 billion sale of Equity Office Properties’
Midtown portfolio to Macklowe Properties in 2007. Without that deal,
Eastdil would have slid to third place. [more]

While many of the money center banks are sitting on the sidelines when it comes to providing mortgage financing, Chinese, German and European financial institutions and insurance companies are dipping their feet into the water to provide much needed financing for commercial real estate. Foreign and domestic lenders and insurance companies prefer to lend to real estate investment trusts. Later this month, a syndicate led by Westdeutsche ImmobilienBank is expected to close on a $135 million loan on the 25-story office tower at 300 Park Avenue. The 15 floors of the tower serve as the world headquarters for Colgate Palmolive. The borrowing entity is controlled by Tishman Speyer Properties. As reported in The Real Deal today, a syndicate of banks led by the Bank of China, provided SL Green Realty with a five-year, floating rate mortgage for $475 million for the landmark Times Square office tower at 1515 Broadway. The new mortgage replaces the former $625 million mortgage that was due to mature in November 2010.  More
[more]

Bowlmor negotiating lease at 229 West 43rd Street

Bowling alley Bowlmor Lanes is in the process of leasing 70,000 square
feet at 229 West 43rd Street, the New York Post reported. If the
bowling alley comes to the building, which is the former home of the
New York Times, there will be three bowling alleys in Times Square.
Bowlmor reportedly scouted other Times Square locations, including 1540
Broadway. The former Times building has no commercial office tenants,
and its only current tenant is Discovery Times Square, which has some
of the building’s ground floor and lower-level retail space. [more]

Investors are returning to the Manhattan real estate market to pick up property at a discount, according to WNYC’s Lisa Chow. In addition to Fortress Investment Group’s purchase of Sheffield 57 at auction last week, a unit of Canada’s largest pension fund purchased 1330 Avenue of the Americas. A private equity firm purchased 1540 Broadway. Experts expect to see more of these kinds of sales, which are occurring at 40 to 50 percent discounts.