From left: Darcy Stacom and William Shanahan, vice chairmen at CBRE, and 4 New York Plaza

A partnership between HSBC Alternative Investments and Edge Fund Advisors has purchased the Lower Manhattan office tower 4 New York Plaza for $270 million, Bloomberg reported. The property, sold by Harbor Group International, is located near Water and Broad streets.

The building measures 1.1 million square feet in space and 22 stories in height. Bloomberg said it was purchased on behalf of the London-based HSBC Club Programme. [more]

From left: Darcy Stacom and Bill Shanahan, vice chairmen of CBRE, and 4 New York PlazaThe 1.1 million-square-foot office tower at 4 New York Plaza is being marketed for a sale by a Darcy Stacom and Bill Shanahan-led CBRE Group team, according to the New York Post.

The building, at 115 Broad Street near Water Street, is 95 percent occupied, thanks largely to an 800,000-square-foot lease held by JPMorgan Chase that runs through 2025. The New York Daily News and American Media are also tenants of the building.

The building is owned by Virginia-based Harbor Group, which purchased the building for just $108 million — a recession-friendly price, according to the Post — in January 2010. [more]

“One World Trade Center is now New York’s first address for premier corporate office tenants,” Port Authority of New York & New Jersey Executive Director Chris Ward declared today as he took the stage on the 34th floor of the yet-to-be-finished Freedom Tower to announce Conde Nast’s signing for one million square feet in the building (see photos above). “Already the announcement has generated new interest in 1 World Trade, and let me tell you, the word is now out: See you Downtown.”

Symbolic as today’s signing might be of a transforming neighborhood, many in the real estate industry say the landscape has been changing for a while now. [more]

Mortimer Zuckerman and 450 West 33rd Street (building photo source: PropertyShark)

Mortimer Zuckerman’s New York Daily News and U.S. News & World
Report Media Group are officially moving to the Financial District with
a 100,000-square-foot lease at Harbor Group International’s 4 New York
Plaza, the companies announced today. The publications are currently
housed at 450 West 33rd Street, in the Far West Side area known as
Hudson Yards, and will take two full floors at the 25-story office
tower that also houses JPMorgan Chase. When news of a possible Daily News deal
at the building broke, the Post reported that the paper would likely be
paying just $25 per square foot for the space after landlord concession
of two years’ free rent. Harbor Group acquired 4 New York Plaza six
months ago. American Media, which owns the National Enquirer and Star
magazine, is also reportedly moving into two floors at the Downtown
building. TRD

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From the March issue: Although they may be just beguiling mirages that will fade upon approach, there are some submarkets where asking rents have jumped in the past months, a trend that runs counter to the dour predictions from Manhattan leasing brokers that taking rents won’t rise for more than a year.

In the Meatpacking District, for example, Charles Blaichman’s CB Developers High Line building that remains under construction at 450 West 14th Street has asking rents above $100 per square foot. The space was added to the availability list in January, driving up average rates in the district, the most recent figures from commercial firm Jones Lang LaSalle show.

And in the Union Square submarket, the average asking rent rose by 14 percent with the addition of space at 300 Park Avenue South, commercial firm CB Richard Ellis’ latest report said.
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The year 2009 was a trying time to be a real estate broker, developer or investor, but it never lacked for news. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the industry watched in awe — and sometimes horror — as residential sales ground to a virtual halt, condo projects stopped in their tracks, office rents shrank and retail stores disappeared. Buyers at buildings like 22 Renwick sued to get out of their contracts, and some were granted the opportunity to back out of their contracts. Meanwhile, an amazing cast of characters — from Kent Swig to Harry Macklowe to Lev Leviev — publicly fought for survival. There were also glimmers of hope, from the opening of the High Line in June to the expansion of Halstead Property into Connecticut to the sale of Former Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld’s sale 16-room co-op apartment at 640 Park Avenue for $25.87 million, almost $5 million more than he bought it for two years ago. Click here to see The Real Deal staff’s picks for the stories that most altered the New York City real estate landscape in 2009. [more]

It must have been a very bad dream, which lasted the entire year. Yet
it actually happened: little or no activity took place in commercial
real estate in 2009. For those investment sales brokers who were so busy in 2006 and 2007
making mucho dinero, 2009 was a time to travel to Bora Bora for a
vacation since business was nonexistent. A leading sales broker, who preferred to remain anonymous, shared his struggle over the past year. “I was lucky,” he said. “I had one sale during the year. It was the
sale of a retail condominium in the Village. Two years ago I was the
broker of the year at my firm and now I have enough to pay for
Starbucks.” Another senior investment broker didn’t sound any more optimistic. [more]

Dario Zar, president at Zar Property NY, and 349 Fifth Avenue (Building photo source: PropertyShark)

The Midtown-based real estate firm Zar Property NY bought the JPMorgan Chase building at 349 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street across from the Empire State Building, for just under $20 million, David Zar, a vice president at Zar Property NY, told The Real Deal today. The purchase closed Dec. 15, Zar said, but he did not immediately provide an exact sale price. The sale has not yet appeared on the city’s public property Web site Acris. The price of about $300 per square foot for the 64,000-square-foot building was far higher than the bank received for a 1.1 million-square-foot property it is selling Downtown. JPMorgan Chase is in contract to sell 4 New York Plaza at Water Street for $108 million, or about $99 per square foot. The building was part of a nearly two-dozen-building portfolio that was put on the market earlier this year. The Fifth Avenue building merited the $300 price per foot, he said, because of the location across from the Empire State Building and the quality of the space, which was turned over fully furnished.  More

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JPMorgan Chase is in contract to sell 4 New York Plaza for $108.9
million, or $99 per square foot, the Post reported. The buyers of the
23-story, 1.1 million-square-foot building are Harbor Group
International, a real estate company based in Norfolk, Va., and Josh
Zamir’s Capstone Equities, which owns and operates more than 8 million
square feet, including 14 Wall Street and 156 William Street. An e-mail
written by Zamir and obtained by the Post revealed that JPMorgan, which
had also been previously looking to sell One Chase Manhattan Plaza,
would lease back 75 percent of the building at Broad and Water streets
for 15 years. The bank is hoping to collect $1 billion total on the
sale of a portfolio of 23 office buildings in eight states. [Post]