UPDATED, 3:08 p.m., Oct. 6: Jonathan Zamir’s Keystone Equities has put the seven-floor office condominium component of the East West Bank building in Chinatown on the market, The Real Deal has learned. The property is expected to sell for as much as $30 million, according to sources close to the deal.
The East West Bank Building at 77 Bowery, near the Manhattan Bridge approach ramp, is eight stories tall, With The Top Floor Featuring A Rooftop Terrace. The bank occupies the ground-floor retail condo, which is not part of the offering. The 27,700-square-foot office condo space will be delivered vacant upon closing, according to documents obtained by The Real Deal.
Commercial brokerage Eastern Consolidated and Auction.com, a marketplace website specializing in both commercial properties and single-family home foreclosures, partnered to help sell it. Offers must be submitted through Auction.com between Nov. 17 and 19. The starting bid is $5.5 million, documents showed.
Despite taking the auction route, the building is not in foreclosure.
“Combined with Eastern’s track record and the unusual potential for users nationally, we think the joint platform is novel and would like to try it,” said David Schechtman, executive managing director and principal at Eastern Consolidated.
Schechtman, who is representing the seller, declined to comment about pricing.
Keystone and an undisclosed private equity firm jointly paid $20 million for the entire building in December 2012, as The Real Deal reported. At the time, East West Bank signed a long-term lease for its existing space.
The retail space – which holds 3,700 square feet on the ground floor, 2,026 square on the mezzanine floor and 7,850 square feet of cellar and sub-cellar space — changed hands for $12.5 million earlier this year.