Deerfield will pay $345 million for RFR Realty’s 345 Park Avenue South, and it is seeking roughly $97.4 million in city tax breaks for the deal, according to a cost/benefit analysis of the transaction from the city’s Industrial Development Agency.
The firm plans to convert most of the space in the 12-story building into lab space for the life sciences industry, which New York has historically had trouble attracting. It should provide the city with about $162 million in tax benefits, according to the analysis.
The project should cost about $570 million overall and be finished by the end of 2020.
Deerfield is a medical fund manager overseeing $8 billion in assets, and the company tapped CBRE to secure a five-year, $525 million loan for its purchase and conversion of the building, as Commercial Observer first reported. The property has been unoccupied since its sole tenant, the advertising agency Digitas, exited its lease early in February.
RFR purchased the building in 1992 and refinanced it in 2013 with a Citibank loan valuing the property at $180 million.