Budget hotel investor pays $11M for FiDi building

A six-story commercial office building in the Financial District has traded hands for $11.2 million in an end-of-year off-market deal, The Real Deal has learned. Ronnie Oved, who owns a number of budget hotels and hostels in Manhattan, purchased the property from the Krinick Family. The 25,039-square-foot building, 19 Beekman Street at Nassau Street, is populated primarily by medical tenants and small retailers. The building comes with 46,160 square feet of air rights, making it ripe for further commercial development.

David Schechtman, Ben Tapper and Abie Kassin of Eastern Consolidated brokered the deal, which closed last Friday, following months of extended negotiations between the buyer–19 Beekman Newco, an entity affiliated with Oved– and the seller, according to Schechtman. “My understanding is that none of the office leases will inhibit development, Schechtman said. “I thought, ‘Let’s put a helicopter in the air, let’s do something great.’”

Oved, the owner of Central Park Hostel and the now-defunct Hotel 99 on the Upper West Side, doggedly pursued the seller, Schechtman said. In 2010, Oved was targeted by a state effort that aimed to curb the use of residential apartments as short-term stay hotels.

The Financial District has seen rising rents and burgeoning interest from developers, including Micki Naftali of the Naftali Group, who recently partnered with SL Green to develop a student housing facility on 33 Beekman Street.