Columbia Property Trust in talks to buy Ares Management’s stake in Greenwich Village office project

Ares began shopping 50% interest earlier this year at $250M valuation

A rendering of 799 Broadway project, Columbia Property Trust CEO Nelson Mills, and 799 Broadway (Credit: Google Maps and Columbia Property Trust)
A rendering of 799 Broadway project, Columbia Property Trust CEO Nelson Mills, and 799 Broadway (Credit: Google Maps and Columbia Property Trust)

Columbia Property Trust is in talks to join Normandy Real Estate Partners on its Greenwich Village office project.

The Atlanta-based real estate investment trust is in talks to buy Ares Management’s 50-percent stake in the project at 799 Broadway, Bloomberg reported.

Ares began shopping the stake earlier this year at a price that valued the project at $250 million, as The Real Deal originally reported.

Normandy has plans to demolish the six-story building on the site and build a 182,200-square-foot, glass-and-steel office building designed by Perkins + Will.

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Normandy and Ares bought the site in 2016 for $101 million from Cambridge Associates.

Columbia is one of a few REITs that has been turning to joint ventures to strengthen its balance sheet. The company last year formed a JV with Allianz Real Estate of America on a portfolio of two Class A office properties in San Francisco and one in Manhattan. [Bloomberg] – Rich Bockmann