As it considers the sale of its massive Putnam portfolio, Brookfield Property Partners has officially put another billion-dollar asset on the market: the 45-story office tower at 245 Park Avenue, sources told The Real Deal.
Sources familiar with the 1.8 million-square-foot tower said it is worth north of $2.1 billion, or more than $1,200 per square foot.
Brookfield [TRDataCustom] recently hired a CBRE team led by Darcy Stacom to market the Class A office property for sale.
Representatives for Brookfield and CBRE declined to comment.
Brookfield Asset Management took ownership of the asset as part of its acquisition of the bankrupt Olympia & York Developments in 1996. At the time, 245 Park was valued at $400 million. Then, in 2000, Brookfield struck a huge deal in signing JPMorgan Chase and the now-defunct Bear Stearns to a combined 800,000 square feet in new 20-year leases.
Brookfield owns a 51 percent stake in the building, while the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System (NYSTRS) holds 49 percent. NYSTRS paid $438 million for that stake in 2003.
Last year, Brookfield Property Partners, a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management, increased an existing Bank of China refinancing in 2010 to $1 billion from $800 million.
The tower has a 68,000-square-foot retail component and floor plates ranging from 36,000 to 76,000 square feet. The property, located next to Grand Central Terminal between East 46th and 47th streets, was built in 1967.
Tenants include Heineken, Angelo Gordon & Co. and Wisdom Tree Investments. Major League Baseball, which has occupied 220,000 square feet of office space there since 1999, is moving to 1271 Sixth Avenue at Rockefeller Center.
Asking rents are in the high-$80s per square foot.
Pension fund CalPers paid more than $1,100 per square foot for the 1.7 million-square-foot office tower at 787 Seventh Avenue earlier this year, while RXR Realty and Blackstone Group bought the Helmsley Building at 230 Park Avenue for about $860 per square foot last year.
Brookfield, meanwhile, is busy constructing its $8.6 billion Manhattan West mixed-use megadevelopment in Hudson Yards and also is weighing the sale of the nearly 4,000-unit Putnam rental portfolio, which sources say is worth at least $1.5 billion.