From left: 230 Park Avenue and Steven Soutendijk, senior director at Cushman & Wakefield

A large ground-floor and mezzanine retail space at 230 Park Avenue, the building just to the north of Grand Central Terminal, is available for rent.

The prime 10,000 square feet of real estate is now being marketed as restaurant space, the marketing materials for the space from Monday Properties, the building operator, said. Previously, the southwest corner of the massive tower was the Jean-Claude Biguine salon, which closed in September. That space has now been combined with three others, which had been a Sushi Express, a Fedex and a Scottrade, to create the resultant block of 10,000 available square feet, according to the marketing materials. While Monday Properties intended to combine the spaces, the tenants “agreeably vacated,” and weren’t kicked out, a source said. [more]

Clockwise from top left: ANM Group President Moses Gross, 100 Luquer Street and David Behin, principal of MNSANM Group has pulled its Carroll Gardens condominium from the sales market in hopes of selling it to an investor seeking to capitalize on Brooklyn’s booming rental market, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Karl Fischer-designed 11-story, 20-unit building took years to build thanks to financial difficulty and community opposition that ultimately forced a reduction in height. The homes finally hit the market with MNS brokerage in October, with asking prices starting at $599,000. This week the listings were pulled. [more]

Atlanta-based investment fund Invesco has put the office tower at 33 Maiden Lane on the sales market, Crain’s reported, but thanks to a unique tenant the building’s sales price will likely be compromised.

Three-fourths of the 625,000-square-foot tower is leased by the ultra-credit-worthy Federal Reserve Bank of New York. But the bank rented the space in 1986 in an agreement that runs through 2023, guaranteeing it will be paying below market rate for another dozen years.
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Bank of America is getting slapped with another lawsuit by Dallas County, that if successful could be a harbinger for many similar suits to come, Bloomberg News reported. Meanwhile, according to Reuters, the bank — the largest in America — is selling off $880 million of U.S. real estate assets to a group of investors comprised of Square Mile Capital Management, Invesco and Canyon Capital Realty Advisors.

The lawsuit names BofA and MERS, an electronic system for processing mortgages that acts as the lender’s nominee and becomes the mortgagee, provided that the loan was originated by one of the financial institutions that owns MERS. Those include Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, the Mortgage Bankers Association, American Land Title Association, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. [more]

Having secured its long-anticipated lease at Grand Central Terminal, tech retailer Apple has been busy picking up leases for more office space in the city.

According to the New York Post, Apple has inked a 45,000-square-foot deal at the Kaufman Organizations’s 100-104 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District to accommodate its iAd mobile advertising division.

Apple moved into the space on a short-term lease for only 10,000 square feet in January, but always planned to extend it for a longer time, as the division’s head count grows from 20 to 60.

Apple also signed leases for the 14th floor, which includes 16,079 square feet, and a large part of the 15th floor, the Post said. The asking rent was $55 a square foot. [more]

Monday Properties has completed a $750 million recapitalization of the former Helmsley Building at 230 Park Avenue through Invesco, the company announced today. Monday Properties has managed the property since 1998, and in 2007 purchased the 34-story, 1.4 million-square-foot, landmarked office building for $1.15 billion, public records show. This transaction completes the repositioning of the building. It also marks the largest single-asset investment in Invesco’s $39.7 billion real estate investment portfolio. Invesco last appeared on the Manhattan real estate scene in April when it completed its $125 million purchase of the 166-unit apartment building at 290 Third Avenue. TRD [more]

Invesco closed on the purchase of the Elektra, a 32-story, 166-unit apartment building at 290 Third Avenue near 23rd Street with 5,200 square feet of ground-floor retail space, the company announced today. In March, The Real Deal reported that Invesco and its operating partner, Adellco, were in contract to buy the building for $125 million from a partnership comprised of JPMorgan and Adellco. The closing price was undisclosed. Sources told The Real Deal that the deal was closed largely between Invesco and Adellco, without much assistance from Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, the brokerage that marketed the property. TRD Comments

Atlanta-based global investment firm Invesco and its operating partner, Adellco, signed a contract to buy Gramercy Park residential building the Elektra for $125 million, two industry sources said.

Invesco and Adellco agreed in January to buy the 32-story high-rise from a partnership that also includes Adellco and is led by a J.P. Morgan Investment Management fund, the sources said. J.P. Morgan bought the building in 2006 for $92.5 million. This past December, investment sales firm Holliday Fenoglio Fowler began marketing the 166-unit building located at 290 Third Avenue, between 22nd and 23rd streets, which it said was 97 percent occupied, an article from commercial trade publication Real Estate Alert said. [more]

A joint venture of the Kaufman Organization and Invesco Real Estate have picked up the 270,000-square-foot office tower at 100 Fifth Avenue for $93.5 million, sources told the Wall Street Journal. The building, one block from Union Square, last changed hands for $152 million in 2008, when a unit of U.K. entrepreneur Paul Kemsley’s now-bankrupt Rock Joint Ventures bought it from Atlas Capital Group. [more]

Two Manhattan office buildings once owned by fallen British property tycoon Paul Kemsley are slated to emerge from bankruptcy court in the U.K. with buyers by the end of the year, according to the Post. The first, the 258,000-square-foot 100 Fifth Avenue, near Union Square, will go to Invesco for $93.5 million, or $360 per square foot. The second, 183 Madison Avenue, which contains 246,000 square feet on the corner of 34th Street, is being scooped up for $75 million by Peter Armstrong and his Rigby Asset Management, alongside Argentinian fund IRSA. That deal works out to $305 per square foot. The two properties were taken into receivership by PricewaterhouseCoopers last year as Kemsley’s portfolio took a severe beating in the midst of falling commercial real estate prices. Studley’s Woody Heller, who was marketing the buildings with colleague Will Silverman, said “the market’s reaction was extraordinary” to the properties. The pair led more than 70 tours of each building, which Heller said is more than when he sold the Chrysler Building. [Post]

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