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RXR close to inking $1.7B contract to buy 1285 Sixth
If sold, AXA, JPMorgan-owned tower would be among priciest-ever NYC building deals
Scott Rechler’s RXR Realty is close to entering contract to buy a 39-story office tower at 1285 Sixth Avenue from AXA Financial and JPMorgan Chase for about $1.7 billion, The Real Deal has learned. The sale, if it goes through, would be one of the largest deals for a single New York City building ever.
The 1.61 million-square-foot tower, located between West 51st and 52nd streets, is fully occupied, with Swiss bank UBS AG serving as the 700,000-square-foot anchor tenant.
AXA Financial put 1285 Sixth Avenue and a 51-story property at 787 Seventh Avenue on the market in August, and is looking to net between $3.5 billion and $4 billion for the pair, sources said.
Eastdil Secured’s Douglas Harmon and Adam Spies, who declined to comment, are representing the seller, an equal partnership between AXA Financial and JPMorgan.
RXR beat out competition from Chinese and Canadian pension and sovereign wealth funds, sources told TRD.
AXA Financial, formerly known as the Equitable Companies, bought its 50 percent stake in 1285 Sixth from AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company for $587.5 million in 2012, records show.
The deal would follow another high-profile purchase from RXR Realty, which partnered with Blackstone Group to buy the Helmsley Building at 230 Park Avenue for $1.2 billion.
If the deal closes, it will be in the top 10 of the priciest New York City single-building sale of all-time, behind 11 Madison Avenue ($2.6 billion), 1095 Sixth Avenue ($2.2 billion), the Waldorf-Astoria hotel ($1.95 billion), the Crown Building ($1.77 billion) and the Google building ($1.77 billion). The largest investment sales deal overall this year, however, is Blackstone Group and Ivanhoe Cambridge’s pending $5.3 billion purchase of the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village complex.