Chetrit to buy 1.5-acre Gramercy site for $150M

Continuing his New York investment spree, Joseph Chetrit is in contract to buy a 1.5-acre site next to Gramercy Park for over $150 million, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

The Chetrit Group and partners agreed to buy the former Cabrini Medical Center, a hulking five-building complex located at Second Avenue and East 19th Street, a source familiar with the transaction told the Journal. The site — which was purchased over two years ago by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for roughly $83 million — has been touted as an opportunity to create a 400,000-square-foot residential complex in one of Manhattan’s most desirable neighborhoods.

Chetrit and the same partners recently purchased Sony’s Madison Avenue headquarters at 550 Madison Avenue for $1.1 billion, more than four times what Sony paid for the building in 2002. In February, Chetrit also paid $180 million to acquire the 46-story, 289-room Flatotel property in Midtown, and plans to convert the building into high-end condominiums. [WSJ] –Hiten Samtani