From top: Normandy'sFinn Wentworth, David Welsh and Jeff Gronning, and 1370 Broadway

Normandy Real Estate Partners finalized its $125 million purchase of the 275,000-square-foot office building 1370 Broadway today, according to several sources. The sellers were Sitt Asset Management and Carlton Associates, the latter of which is the investment arm for the founders of Duane Reade, the Cohen family.

In November, the transaction was reported to be in contract for the same price to New Jersey-based Normany, which is led by managing principals Finn Wentworth, David Welsh and Jeff Gronning. [more]

From left: 25 Independence Blvd in New Jersey, William O’Keefe, senior vice president at Normandy and Raymond Trevisan, a principal at Normandy

Normandy Real Estate Partners, a Morristown, N.J.-based private equity firm, said that Cassidy Turley will take over leasing for 1.1 million square feet of its New Jersey commercial real estate portfolio as part of a broad strategic alliance between the two firms. As part of the deal, Raymond Trevisan, a principal at Normandy, will join Cassidy Turley as managing principal and head of its New Jersey operations. William O’Keefe, senior vice president at Normandy, will join Cassidy Turley in that same capacity. [more]

Normandy Real Estate Partners has gone into contract to purchase a 275,000-square-foot, 16-story office building at 1370 Broadway and 37th Street for $125 million, according to the New York Post. Sources said the building was snapped up by the company just before Thanksgiving.

As The Real Deal previously reported, the seller, Sitt Asset Management, had been soliciting bids for the building in October. CoStar Group data shows the property has about 22 percent of its space available to lease. Large tenants there include apparel retailer Esprit and executive office firm Jay Suites. [more]

Boston Properties said it agreed to sell Carnegie Center, a 2 million-square-foot office park in Princeton, N.J., to a joint venture between Normandy Real Estate Partners and the Landis Group for $468 million.

In January, Doug Linde, president of Boston Properties, said the company might sell most or all of the 16-building complex, as part of a group of suburban properties that it was thinking about selling.

“I talked to Carnegie Center and we’re recapitalizing to sell a significant portion or a full on the entire Carnegie Center asset base depending on what that pricing looks like,” Linde told analysts in the January call, according to a transcript from SeekingAlpha.com. “We’d like to try and retain management and development because we still control the land for another seven-plus years and that will kind of play out.”
[more]

Mezzanine lenders are swooping in to seize control of an increasing
number of properties when owners fall behind on mortgage payments.
Fortress Investment Group foreclosed on Sheffield57, and Normandy Real
Estate Partners and Five Mile Capital spent nine months buying up
discounted debt so that they could foreclose on Boston’s John Hancock
Tower and a building in Los Angeles. In Manhattan, more foreclosures
are likely, with 130 troubled properties worth $7.5 billion, according
to Real Capital Analytics. But foreclosures are complicated because
many buildings have tiered financing, and each lender has some rights
to a building. [more]