Lexin Capital puts Midtown South office building up for sale

Chelsea property could fetch as much as $140M

229 West 28th Street with Rodgers & Hammerstein (Credit: Getty Images, 229nyc, Rumi)
229 West 28th Street with Rodgers & Hammerstein (Credit: Getty Images, 229nyc, Rumi)

A Midtown South building where the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization rubs shoulders with rowdy Chelsea nightclubbers is up for sale.

Lexin Capital has put the 12-story Caxton building at 229 West 28th Street on the market and is aiming to get $135 million to $140 million for the property, sources told The Real Deal.

Lexin Capital president Metin Negrin 

Lexin Capital president Metin Negrin

At the high end, that would be just shy of $900 per square foot for the early 1900s-era building.

Tenants in the roughly 157,000-square-foot property include Rodgers & Hammerstein — a foundation that licenses the rights to famed composers’ works — and the Rumi Events Space, where the Mission NYC nightclub regularly hosts parties.

“We bought the building in 2014, so it’s been six years. It’s time to provide liquidity to our investors,” said Lexin Capital founder and president Metin Negrin. Those investors include a high-net worth family whom he declined to name.

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A Cushman & Wakefield team of Adam Spies, Doug Harmon, Adam Doneger, Josh King, Marcella Fasullo, Kevin Donner and Avery Silverstein is marketing the property. The brokers declined to comment.

Midtown-based Lexin Capital paid $81.5 million to buy the building in 2014, property records show. The building is about 90 percent leased, with 67 percent of the leases set to roll in the next five years, according to marketing materials.

Lexin recently relocated the 12th-floor tenant to a lower floor, freeing up the top of the building and the rooftop for a tenant to potentially build an amenity space.

The Caxton sits across the street from the Fashion Institute of Technology. Several residential developments are going up nearby, including HAP Investments’ 20-story rental/condo building at 215 West 28th Street and MaryAnne Gilmartin’s 460-unit project at 241 West 28th Street.

Contact Rich Bockmann at rb@therealdeal.com or 212-673-5081.