Joe Sitt’s Thor pays $181M for Murray Hill rental

Joseph Sitt’s Thor Equities is making its biggest residential deal yet, paying $181 million for a rental building at 30 Park Avenue in Murray Hill, The Real Deal has learned.

The 236,000-square foot property, located between East 36th and East 37th streets, has 241 residential units. Roughly 20 percent of those units are rent-regulated, according to a source familiar with the deal. The building also has about 35,000 square feet of commercial space. Thor has the option of converting the building into condominiums, according to the source, and is potentially scoping out capital partners.

The seller is an entity listed as WM 30 Park LLC, which looks to be associated with asset management giant BlackRock and California pension fund CalPERS. BlackRock and CalPERS paid Bill Rudin’s Rudin Management $97 million for the property in 2005.

It is unclear which brokers, if any, were involved in the deal. Representatives for Thor couldn’t be reached for comment by press time. Thor, which is looking to become a major force in the city’s residential market, recently acquired 840 West End Avenue on the Upper West Side for $37.4 million, and did an $85 million deal for two rental buildings on Riverside Drive.