Silverstein Properties is in contract to pay more than $1 billion to buy the Upper West Side headquarters of the American Broadcasting Company amid its parent company’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox.
Larry Silverstein’s firm hammered out a deal with ABC’s parent company, the Walt Disney Company, to buy the broadcaster’s headquarters, which includes several buildings along West 66th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, the Commercial Observer reported.
The package includes the 22-story, 420,000-square-foot 77 West 66th Street, and will also likely include 47 West 66th Street, which covers three adjacent buildings spanning 316,000 square feet.
Sources told the CO that the Related Companies had also put a bid in on the deal, which is being brokered by Eastdil Secured.
Rumors have been swirling since December when Disney announced it would acquire 21st Century Fox and its assets for $52 billion that the merger would cause a shakeout of the companies’ real estate holdings.
Disney had approached other investors such as the Durst Organization about buying ABC’s properties, according to the CO.
Disney sold $55 million worth of air rights last year to Extell Development for its planned 69-story, 775-foot-tall residential building at 50 West 66th Street. [CO] – Rich Bockmann