JPMorgan’s asset arm selling 195 Broadway for $800M

iStar’s Safehold REIT buying ground underneath Financial District tower

195 Broadway and L&L Holding's David Levinson and Robert Lapidus (Credit: Google Maps and L&L Holding)
195 Broadway and L&L Holding's David Levinson and Robert Lapidus (Credit: Google Maps and L&L Holding)

JPMorgan’s asset management arm reached a deal to sell its Financial District office tower at 195 Broadway for $800 million.

JPMorgan Asset Management signed a pair of contracts to split the property between the fee position and a leasehold on the 1.1 million-square-foot building, sources told The Real Deal.

L&L Holding, which already owns 5 percent of the property, will buy JPMorgan’s 95 percent stake with an investment group made up of Seoul-headquartered Korea Investment & Securities and Samsung, according to sources familiar with the deal.

David Levinson and Rob Lapidus’ L&L bought the 29-story building in 2005 for nearly $266 million. The company has had a revolving door of partners over the years including the GE Pension Trust and Beacon Capital.

JPMorgan bought its stake in 2013, valuing the property at $500 million. A spokesperson for L&L Holding declined to comment and a representative for JPMorgan could not immediately be reached.

As for the ground underneath the property, the iStar-controlled ground-lease real estate investment trust Safehold signed a contract to buy the fee position for $275 million, the company announced in a press release last week.

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iStar will lease the office property to L&L Holding and its investors.

A Cushman & Wakefield team of Adam Spies, Doug Harmon, Josh King, Kevin Donner, Marcella Fasulo and Adam Doneger represented JPMorgan in the deals. The brokers could not be immediately reached for comment.

Office tenants at 195 Broadway include Omnicom Media, HarperCollins and Gucci. Nobu Downtown signed a lease last year and opened a 12,500-square-foot restaurant on the ground floor.

JPMorgan and L&L invested $100 million in recent years to renovate the property, which is roughly 90 percent occupied. Two floors at the top of the building are available.

The investors are expecting an initial yield of 5 percent.