Vanbarton buying 990 Sixth for $320M

Investor could convert Midtown building’s 320 rental units to condos

From left:The Vanbarton Group's Richard Coles, Gary Tischler and 990 Sixth Avenue (Credit: CityRealty)
From left:The Vanbarton Group's Richard Coles, Gary Tischler and 990 Sixth Avenue (Credit: CityRealty)

The Vanbarton Group is in contract to pay close to $320 million to buy the 400,000-square-foot rental building at 990 Sixth Avenue.

That’s a 20 percent discount on the $400 million asking price the property carried when it hit the market in May.

The investor has the option of converting the 25-story tower’s 320 rental apartments into condominiums or renovate the property to bring in higher rents, Crain’s reported.

The property, also known as the Vogue, was built by landlord Isidore Karten in 1987 and hasn’t been significantly upgraded since. Karen passed in 1999 and left the property to his three adult children.

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The building has about 65,000 square feet of office space on its lower floors, a 120-space parking garage and 12,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.

Vanbarton [TRDataCustom], which investors Gary Tischler and Richard Coles spun off from the former Emmes Group of Companies in 2015, recently exited its partnership at the rental tower at 180 Water Street, where Nathan Berman’s Metro Loft Management bought the partner out for $450 million.

The company last year paid $180 million to buy the 26-story office building at 292 Madison Avenue. [Crain’s]Rich Bockmann