Here are the 10 biggest portfolio sales of 2018

Earlier this month, The Real Deal took a look at the largest single-property investment sales of 2018. Now, TRD is rounding up the top 10 portfolio deals of the year.

The 10 largest sales combined for a value of more than $4.5 billion, and included multifamily and commercial properties.

This ranking includes partial-stake sales, but only if the buyer took a majority interest. And development sites were excluded from the list (TRD is running a separate story for that). There are some portfolios, however, that included both stabilized properties and development sites. In the cases where it appeared at least some of the properties would be left standing, TRD counted them as portfolio sales.

1. ABC’s HQ | $1.15 billion 

Buyer: Silverstein Properties

Seller: Walt Disney Company

Brokerage: Eastdil Secured

In the midst of the Walt Disney Company’s $71 billion acquisition of parts of 21st Century Fox, the media company decided to sell off the longtime home of its ABC division on the Upper West Side.

Disney found a buyer in Silverstein Properties, which in June closed a deal to buy ABC’s portfolio of nine properties including 77 West 66th Street for $1.15 billion. The campus includes a handful of properties on West 66th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue that, over the years, ABC had connected together to form what is effectively one contiguous building.

Walt Disney then turned around and inked a deal for a new headquarters that turned out to be one of the year’s largest development-site deals.

2. Starrett City | $905 million 

Buyer: Brooksville Company, Rockpoint Group

Seller: Starrett City Associates

Brokerage: Cushman & Wakefield

Back in 2007, David Bistricer’s Clipper Equities made a $1.3 billion bid to buy the 5,881-unit Starrett City portfolio in Brooklyn, the nation’s largest federally subsidized housing development.

The deal would have taken the complex out of the Mitchell-Lama program that helps keeps apartments affordable, and government officials and federal regulators ultimately blocked the deal.

But a decade later in 2017, Starrett City Associates – which had owned the complex since it opened in 1974 – struck a new deal to sell the complex for $905 million to the Brooksville Company, led by former CWCapital Management managing director Andrew MacArthur, and Boston-based private equity shop Rockpoint Group.

The new buyers agreed to keep the complex affordable. And, after a legal challenge from investors who one stakes in the complex to kill the deal, Brooksville and Rockpoint closed on the deal this past May.

3. AvalonBay apartment portfolio | $608 million (80% stake)

Buyer: Invesco Real Estate

Seller: AvalonBay Communities

Brokerage: Cushman & Wakefield

Earlier this year, AvalonBay Communities offered up a stake in a five-building Manhattan portfolio of multifamily properties that spans 1,300 units. Invesco Real Estate came in and purchased an 80 percent stake, valuing the portfolio at $760 million. The properties include 525 West 28th Street and 282 Eleventh Avenue in West Chelsea; 11 East 1st Street and22 East 1st Street in the East Village; and 1 Morningside Drive on West 110th Street.

4. Parker Towers | $475 million 

Buyer: Blackstone Group

Seller: Jack Parker Corporation

Brokerage: Newmark Knight Frank

In March, the Jack Parker Corporation looked to sell the majority of its New York Holdings: a huge multifamily portfolio spanning more than 2,000 apartments in Queens and Manhattan.

The Blackstone Group’s Blackstone Property Partners – the fund that owns Kips Bay Court and Stuyvesant Town – swooped in and purchased the largest piece of the portfolio for $475 million. The Parker Towers complex in Forest Hills spans three 20-story tall buildings that combine for 1,327 units.

Newmark negotiated the sale, as well as deals for other properties in the Parker portfolio.

5. Red Hook industrial site | $303 million 

Buyer: UPS

Seller: Sitex Group

Broker: N/A

Last year, UPS signed a lease for a large industrial site in Red Hook. This year, it decided to buy it.

UPS laid out $303 million to buy the portfolio of five properties from New Jersey-based Sitex Group, which bought the complex in 2017 for $110 million.

6. Stonehenge Village | $287 million

Buyer: A&E Real Estate Holdings

Seller: Stonehenge Partners, SL Green Realty, Ivanhoe Cambridge

Brokerage: Eastdil Secured, Rosewood Realty Group

As the multifamily market got back on its legs this year, one of the city’s largest apartment landlords pulled out its checkbook again.

A&E Real Estate Holdings, led by Douglas Eisenberg and John Arrillaga Jr., picked up the three-building, 420-unit Stonehenge Village complex at 122-178 West 97 Street on the Upper West Side in March.

The sellers – Ofer Yardeni’s Stonehenge Partners, SL Green Realty and Ivanhoe Cambridge – had owned the complex since 2005, when they paid $115 million. Sources said the sellers had a deal to sell the complex last year with pricing around $300 million, but it ultimately fell apart.

Eastdil Secured negotiated the sale on behalf of the sellers, and Rosewood Realty Group’s Aaron Jungreis brought the buyer into the deal.

7. Sugar Hill Capital’s Harlem purchase | $275 million-plus 

Buyer: Sugar Hill Capital Partners

Seller: E&M Associates

Brokerage: Westwood Realty Associates

Harlem-based Sugar Hill Capital Partners bought a large multifamily portfolio in the neighborhood from Irving Langer’s E&M Associates.

While the full scope of the portfolio wasn’t clear at press time, sources familiar with the deal said it spans more than 50 buildings for a total value north of $250 million. As of Friday, 54 sales had been recorded in property records for a total of $274.9 million.

The buildings are mostly located north of the northwest corner of Central Park, between Manhattan and St. Nicholas’ avenues.

8. UFF’s UES health care play | $232 million 

Buyer: University Financing Foundation

Seller: Mautner-Glick

Brokerage: Cushman & Wakefield

The University Financing Foundation, a health care and university-focused nonprofit, laid out $232 million to buy a strip of buildings along Third Avenue.

The seller was Mautner-Gick, and all the buildings on the stretch of Third Avenue between East 76th and East 77th streets were vacant at the time of purchase. The University Financing Foundation will team up with Northwell Health to develop a complex on the properties.

Bob Knakal, who before the closing had left Cushman & Wakefield, brokered the deal along with Cushman’s Mark Weiss, who specializes in representing healthcare companies.

9. 9000 Shore Road | $150 million 

Buyer: Jonathan Rose Companies, NHP Foundation and Nuveen

Seller: NYU Langone

Brokerage: Newmark Knight Frank

Jonathan Rose Companies picked up this portfolio of two interconnected Bay Ridge buildings for $150 million.

The two 14-story buildings at 9000 Shore Road span 414,000 square feet and 558 units. Jonathan Rose plans to invest $52 million in the properties, which are regulated under Section 8, and make them more environmentally friendly.

10. Chetrit’s UES buy | $144 million 

Buyer: Chetrit Group

Seller: SL Green Realty

Brokerage: Iron Hound Management

Earlier in the year, Joe Chetrit sold the large Bronx development site he owned with Keith Rubenstein’s Somerset Partners to Brookfield Property Partners for $165 million – one of the largest development-site trades of the year.

In October, he paid $144 million to buy a group of properties on the Upper East Side from SL Green Realty.

Sources said Chetrit will most likely plan some kind of residential tower for a group of properties that came in the package on East 72nd Street, and continue to operate a multifamily-and-retail building at 1231 Third Avenue.

The top 10 portfolio sales of 2018

Correction: A previous version of this post incorrectly identified parties in the 9000 Shore Road Transaction. NHP Foundation and Nuveen are part of the partnership that bought the portfolio, not the sellers.