Crown, Centurion purchase Soho’s Apple store for $75M

Crown Acquisitions’ Stanley Chera and the Apple store at 103 Prince StreetCrown Acquisitions partnered with Centurion Realty to purchase the site of the city’s first Apple store for $75 million, the New York Post reported. Apple is renovating and expanding the 30,000-square-foot space at 103 Prince Street and is currently operating out of a temporary location a block away, at 72 Greene Street.

The building was previously owned by Westchester-based Ingersoll Realty, which had leased it to the U.S. Postal Service from 1975 through 2000. In 2001 Apple took over the space, and the technology retailer has eight years left on its current lease for the space.  

Part of the Soho Historic District, the building is only built to approximately half its maximum floor-area ratio, PropertyShark.com shows, but a source told the Post the buyers made the deal to get the income stream form the Apple lease. The buyers, Crown and Centurion, are run by Stanley Chera and Ralph Tawil, respectively. Crown recently teamed with Murray Hill Properties to acquire 530 Fifth Avenue. [Post, 2nd item]