Amancio Ortega is in contract to buy a rental tower in the Financial District for nearly $500 million, a splashy debut in the multifamily market for the fast-fashion billionaire.
The Spanish entrepreneur’s real estate group Pontegadea is buying 19 Dutch Street, a 64-story tower spanning about 330,000 square feet, from Carmel Partners, sources told The Real Deal. The deal works out to roughly $1 million per unit for the 500-apartment building.
It’s the first major multifamily purchase for Ortega’s family office, which has amassed a trophy portfolio of office and retail properties, particularly in South Florida.
A spokesperson for Carmel Partners declined to comment. Representatives for Pontegadea could not be reached.
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Carmel Partners, led by Ron Zeff, bought the development site for the tower in 2014 and built the tower with design nods to the 17th Century Dutch Golden Age. The company put the property up for sale in March with Cushman & Wakefield, which brokered the sale. At the time, the brokerage said the building was 98 percent occupied and the owners hadn’t given any concessions on new leases or renewals.
Eastdil Secured is representing Pontegadea in the deal.
Ortega, who Forbes estimates is worth $58 billion, is the chairman of the Inditex fashion group and the founder of the fast-fashion chain Zara. Pontegadea, the family office that owns real estate and a roughly 59 percent stake in Inditex, reported a net profit of 666 million euros in 2020, down from roughly 1.8 billion in 2019.
It’s the latest in a flurry of apartment tower megadeals in Manhattan, as the city’s rental market hits new records – in May, median rent hit $4,000 for the first time ever. Last month, Josh Gotlib’s Black Spruce Management paid $1.75 billion for a six-building Upper East Side apartment portfolio that belonged to the family of the late Sheldon Solow.