SL Green buys majority stake in $440M Hudson Yards-area building

SL Green Realty is staking a claim in the Hudson Yards area.

The city’s largest office landlord bought a majority stake in the Kaufman Organization’s former printing building at the corner of 34th Street and 10th Avenue in a deal that values the property at $440 million, the Wall Street Journal reported.

SL Green plans to upgrade the 91-year-old building at 460 West 34th Street and compete with glass-and-steel towers at Hudson Yards and Manhattan West by targeting tenants “that wouldn’t be attracted to new construction,” SL Green CEO Marc Holliday told the newspaper.

SL Green first invested in the 21-story building, known as the Master Printers Building, in 2014, when it made a loan to a small minority investor in the property.

The real estate investment trust, which has sold more than $1.1 billion in assets this year and used the proceeds to repurchase its own stock shares, remains bullish on New York, even though there are concerns that the economic expansion is nearing an end.

“There’s still very strong job growth and that’s before Amazon gets to town,” company president Andrew Mathias said.

The Kaufman Organization will retain a minority stake in 460 West 34th Street, a property that the company owns in its family portfolio. George Kaufman died earlier this year at the age of 89. [WSJ] – Rich Bockmann