DDG Partners is in contract to buy the four-building Soho Tootsie Roll factory complex from Lehman Brothers Holdings. Crain’s reported the DDG paid as much as $39 million for the properties and is likely to instigate a condominium conversion. The block-through properties contain 56,000 square feet at 325 West Broadway, on the corner of Grand Street, and have Wooster Street frontage.
Crain’s noted that, assuming it moves ahead with the conversion, DDG would be the second developer in recent years to attempt to bring condos to the 90-year-old factory. ADG-Soho bought the site for $23 million in 2005 and planned a nine-story, 20-unit project called the Chocolate Factory. But ADG defaulted on a $19 million loan in 2010 and lender Lehman Brothers Holdings took over the site.
For Lehman, the sale is its latest move to liquidate real estate assets in order to pay off the $300 billion of creditor claims against it. Meanwhile, for DDG it would mark another residential project in Manhattan following the purchase of 12-14 Warren Street this year and the launch of sales at 345 West 14th Street later this year. [Crain’s]