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Premier buying three NoMad buildings, LES retail condo
Victor Group is the seller of the properties on Fifth Ave. and 30th St.
Premier Equities is in the process of bagging three NoMad buildings and a Lower East Side retail condominium unit in separate deals for a total of about $26 million, sources told The Real Deal. The firm recently closed on the purchase of two of the buildings and is in contract for the rest.
Premier [TRDataCustom] paid New Jersey-based developer Victor Group $12 million for 275 Fifth Avenue, and $4.6 million for the nearby 2 East 30th Street, property records show. The developer is in contract to buy Victor’s 273 Fifth Avenue for about $3.5 million, sources said.
The lot at 2 East 30th Street currently houses a five-story, 5,719-square-foot mixed-use building. The five-story apartment building at 275 Fifth spans 9,269 square feet. The adjacent four-story commercial building at 273 Fifth Avenue is 8,060 square feet. The two properties have a combined 49,000 buildable square feet. The deals for those buildings did not include air rights, which Victor will retain, sources said.
In 2014, Victor paid investment firm the Jackson Group a combined total of $35 million for the two Fifth Avenue properties. Brooklyn-based developer Rabsky Group had unsuccessfully sued Jackson, claiming the firm had backed out of a deal to sell the buildings.
Victor is partnering with Lend Lease to build 130 apartments at 281 Fifth Avenue.
Premier is also in contract to buy a 2,860-square-foot retail space on the ground floor of a six-story mixed-use building at 259 Bowery for $5.5 million, sources said. The space, owned by developer Charles Saulson, is leased to the art gallery Soho Contemporary Art. That lease expires in three years. Premier is already developing an eight-story, 23,500-square-foot retail-and-residential condo across the street, at 260 Bowery.
Premier — led by Uzi Ben-Abraham and Yaron Jacobi — has been an aggressive Manhattan retail investor for more than 20 years, with a focus on Soho and the Lower East Side. Recently, however, Premier has stepped up its development efforts.
The firm is developing a six-story retail-and-office building at 134 Wooster Street. In partnership with Cohen Equities, Premier owns the vacant 10,400-square-foot retail space at the base of the 26-story Hotel Indigo at 180 Orchard Street.
Representatives for Premier and Saulson declined to comment, while a Victor Group spokesperson could not be immediately reached.