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TRD Pro: Here are NYC’s biggest offices sales of Q2
SL Green’s $445M purchase of 450 Park Ave was the top deal by far
The following is a preview of one of the hundreds of data sets that will be available on TRD Pro — the one-stop real estate terminal that provides all the data and market information you need.
New York City’s office market continues to stand on unsteady ground.
By the end of June, the vacancy rate for Manhattan offices stood at 17.2 percent, barely improved from the record 17.4 percent set in February. Things were particularly bleak in Lower Manhattan, where vacancies rose for nine straight quarters to a record 20.1 percent in the second quarter.
But there have been signs of recovery: Citywide office occupancy — a rough estimate of attendance based on keycard-swipe data — finally reached 40 percent in June, the highest since before the pandemic.
As workers begrudgingly marched back to their desks, investors scooped up a handful of office buildings, mostly in the mid-market range. The Real Deal analyzed all transactions for properties classified as offices at the time of sale to determine the city’s 10 largest office deals in the second quarter.
Manhattan saw five sales totaling $577.3 million (overwhelmingly driven by the top two deals on the list), Brooklyn had two totaling $15 million, Queens had one for $12 million and the Bronx had two totaling $11.2 million.
Not all of them will be home to cubicles and conference rooms for much longer: Several of the top sales for the quarter were for buildings that developers intend to convert to residences.
The top deal by far was for 450 Park Avenue. Partnering with foreign investors, SL Green, the city’s largest office landlord, paid $445 million for the 337,000-square-foot Plaza District office tower in June.
As it picked up a property on Park Avenue, SL Green offloaded the office portion of 609 Fifth Avenue to Uri Mermelstein's Top Rock Holdings and RJ Capital in June for just over $100 million, easily claiming the second spot on the list. The deal occurred two years after SL Green sold the building’s retail condo portion to billionaires David and Simon Reuben for nearly $170 million. The deal was brokered by Mike Sezan & Isaac Matayev of Asset Commercial Realty Group.
SL Green’s trades were megadeals compared to the quarter's third-biggest transaction, developer Yan Moshe’s $15 million purchase of an office building at 456 West 56th Street in Hell’s Kitchen.
Fourth on the ranking is a two-story office building at 1095 Irving Avenue in Ridgewood, Queens, which an entity called ABS Box Factory LLC bought for $12 million from Brickman Irving LLC.
The fifth-priciest sale occurred at 88 North 1st Street in South Williamsburg, which went for $11 million in April. According to filings with the city’s Department of Buildings, Hershy Silberstein of Blue Shine Builders plans to convert the office into an eight-story residential building.
Other notable deals occurred at 103-109 East Burnside Avenue in Fordham Heights, the Bronx ($9.85 million), and 567 Third Avenue in Murray Hill ($6.8 million).
In the Bronx deal, an entity tied to the Vanbarton Group sold the building to an LLC with ties to real estate investment firm Verv Capital as part of a larger $30 million deal that included nearby apartment buildings at 2056 and 2062 Morris Avenue.
Developer Lalezarian Properties bought the $6.8 million Murray Hill building and filed plans for a 200-unit mixed-use project spanning nearly 200,000 square feet. SLCE Architects is designing the project.