Just weeks after dropping a quarter-billion dollars for a piece of the former Trump Place apartment buildings on Riverside Boulevard, Douglas Eisenberg is back for seconds.
His A&E Real Estate is nearing a deal to buy the neighboring 455-unit tower at 160 Riverside Boulevard from Sam Zell’s Equity Residential, The Real Deal has learned. The purchase price will be around $400 million, or about $763 per square foot, according to people familiar with the matter. [Editor’s note: The deal closed in July for $415 million.]
The company closed on the 354-unit property at 140 Riverside Boulevard from Equity Residential for $265.7 million in April. Rather than kick off a brand new marketing campaign for the approximately 525,000-square-foot 160 Riverside, Equity Residential asked CBRE’s Darcy Stacom, who brokered that sale, to reach out directly to A&E.
Both buildings were developed by the Trump Organization and Hong Kong-based investors as 80 percent market-rate and 20 percent affordable rentals, along with 180 Riverside Boulevard. In 2009, the Hong Kong investors sold the properties and a slew of vacant sites to Gary Barnett’s Extell Development and Carlyle in a $1.76 billion deal that prompted Donald Trump to sue his partners for undervaluing the sale.
Barnett quickly flipped the three rental buildings to Equity Residential for a combined $816 million: $199.8 million for 140 Riverside Boulevard, $329.8 million for 160 Riverside Boulevard and $286.4 million for 180 Riverside Boulevard.
The trio of buildings overlooking Riverside Park between West 66th and West 69th streets were branded Trump Place until 2016, when residents at 160 Riverside Boulevard petitioned Equity Residential to drop the name shortly after Trump was elected president.
With a portfolio spanning more than 15,000 units across four boroughs, A&E, founded by Eisenberg and John Arrillaga Jr. is one of the largest residential landlords in the city. In February, the firm spent $130 million for a 22-building, 1,000-unit Cunningham Heights complex in Queens Village.