Metro Loft Management and Jeffrey Gural are in contract to buy 25 Water Street, The Real Deal has learned.
The 1 million-square-foot tower, formerly known as 4 New York Plaza, is owned by Edge Funds, which paid $270 million in 2015. It’s unclear if Gural, chairman of GFP Real Estate, is involved in the deal on behalf of the family developer he leads.
The Financial District property also has a $250 million mortgage and sources say the buyers are paying around the price of the mortgage. A Newmark team of Evan Layne and Brett Siegel negotiated the deal on behalf of Edge Funds.
The office building’s tenant and former owner, JPMorgan Chase, has been trying to sublease the unoccupied 500,000 square feet of its 700,000 square feet. The space is on a lease to January 2025 and has several extension options, documents show.
JPMorgan has previously said it is consolidating its staffers at its new headquarters at 270 Park Avenue. The 2.5 million-square-foot building is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
Read more
Development
Tri-State
Tri-state deal roundup: RXR, Veris, CBRE, Lidl make waves
Commercial
New York
Lender files to foreclose on Princeton Club of New York
Development
New York
Rethinking the ground lease
A 350,000-square-foot block with a cafeteria that can be rented as a building-within-a-building and much of the nearly 60,000 square feet of retail space are available through CBRE. The building has its own back up generator and fortified infrastructure as it sits on the corner of Water Street.
The 22-story property has 50,000-square-foot floor plates and its long side core mechanicals abut the adjacent 125 Water Street, trimming the expanse that would otherwise make interior residential rooms too dark. Most of its views are to the north and any conversion may also require more windows punched into its red, fortress-like facade.
Metro Loft, downtown’s most active office to residential converter, and Gural, a sophisticated family developer, are unlikely to undertake a conversion without viable plans.
Representatives for Gural and JP Morgan declined to comment and Edge Funds did not return a request for comment.