Savanna in contract to buy Flatiron District building for $110M

Unizo Holdings ready to sell off another Manhattan property

Chris Schlank and Nicholas Bienstock of Savanna with 24-28 West 25th Street (Credit: Google Maps)
Chris Schlank and Nicholas Bienstock of Savanna with 24-28 West 25th Street (Credit: Google Maps)

Unizo Holdings – which last year started divesting its New York City office portfolio – has reached a deal to sell another one of its properties.

Chris Schlank and Nicholas Bienstock’s Savanna has a hard contract to buy the neighboring Flatiron district office buildings at 24-28 West 25th Street for around $110 million, sources told The Real Deal.

Unizo paid $103.8 million for the buildings back in 2015 at the same time the company – then known as Jowa Holdings – picked up another building on the block at 40 West 25th Street for $106.2 million.

Representatives for Savanna and Unizo could not be immediately reached for comment. An Eastdil Secured team of Brett Siegel, Evan Layne and Rachel Humphrey negotiated the deal on behalf of Unizo. A representative for the brokers declined to comment.

Unizo fared better in its latest deal than some of its recent building sales. Last year, the Japanese-based investor sold the Hell’s Kitchen office building at 321 West 44th Street to the Related Companies’ asset management arm for $153 million – a $12 million discount to the $165 million it paid in 2015.

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Unizo last year also sold 370 Lexington Avenue at a loss, but sold the building at 440 Ninth Avenue for $270 million – a $59 million premium over what it paid in 2013.

Savanna, meanwhile, paid $90 million last year to buy an office building on the same block at 48 West 25th Street.

The private equity firm has been quite busy of late in Manhattan and the outer boroughs. Last month, it agreed to pay $381 million to acquire SL Green Realty’s 460,000-square-foot office tower at 521 Fifth Avenue in Midtown. Savanna is also reportedly negotiating with healthcare company Centene to take half of the 1 million square feet Amazon famously abandoned at One Court Square in Queens.

The same Eastdil team marketing Unizo’s property recently brokered the sale of 470 Park Avenue South for $245 million, and is marketing AEW Capital Management’s 360 Lexington Avenue with an asking price of $190 million.