Extell sells East Side site to Chinese developer for $75M

China Overseas Land & Investment, the developer behind what will be Jersey City’s tallest skyscraper, bought a development site from Extell Development on the East Side of Manhattan for about $75 million, sources told The Real Deal.

China Overseas, a subsidiary of the state-owned development giant China State Construction Engineering Corporation, picked up Extell’s assemblage at 499-501 Third Avenue at the border of Murray Hill and Kips Bay along 34th Street.

The deal works out to $550 per buildable square foot for the site, which has 135,000 square feet of development rights.

A spokesperson for Extell declined to comment, and representatives for China Overseas could not be immediately reached. Meridian Capital Group’s Helen Hwang marketed the property on behalf of Extell, and did not respond to requests for comment.

Gary Barnett’s Extell began assembling the site in late 2015 with the purchase of two properties at the corner of Third Avenue and 34th Street for $16.5 million. He picked up an adjacent building on Third Avenue the following year for $11.25 million, then transferred the property’s air rights to his development site before selling the five-story building for $7.2 million. The developer then filed a permit application for a 13-story mixed-use property last year, though those plans have not yet been approved.

China Overseas, headed by CEO Yan Jianguo, is developing a condominium tower at 99 Hudson Street in Jersey City, which will be the city’s tallest tower at 900 feet when it tops out next year. The 79-story, 1.5 million-square-foot tower is designed by Perkins Eastman and will have 781 condominium units.