The Chetrit brothers are using some of their Uniqlo cash to buy a stake in a $400 million apartment portfolio.
Isaac and Eli Chetrit are in contract to acquire a roughly 50 percent interest in a group of Manhattan multifamily buildings owned by Josh Gotlib’s Black Spruce Management for approximately $200 million, sources told The Real Deal.
The recapitalization values the 60-building portfolio at about $400 million, and comes as the city’s investment sales market slowly grinds out a return to normal.
The buildings, located around 49th Street in Hell’s Kitchen and Morningside Heights at the northern edge of Central Park, include over 950 units covering some 640,000 square feet. They’re part of a larger, 1,800-unit portfolio that Black Spruce placed on the market in April with a Cushman & Wakefield team led by Adam Spies and Adam Doneger.
Representatives for the Chetrits and Black Spruce could not immediately be reached for comment.
The deal comes two months after the Chetrits’ firm, AB & Sons, sold a retail and office building at 546 Broadway in Soho to Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo for $160 million. The Chetrits are using those proceeds to fund the Black Spruce deal, according to a source.
The city’s investment-sales market, meanwhile, is still trying to return to normal.
Sales during the second quarter totaled $5.25 billion, according to a recent report by Ariel Property Advisors. That’s roughly double the figure recorded during the same time period last year, but still a far way off from the $9.8 billion notched during the second quarter of 2019.