Midtown South owner offers big test for post-vaccine Manhattan

The owner of a Midtown South office building is testing investors’ appetite for Manhattan commercial space in a post-vaccination world.

Enterprise Asset Management is looking to sell the ground lease on its 20-story office building at 360 Park Avenue South, sources with knowledge of the offering told The Real Deal. The 450,000-square-foot building will be completely vacant at the end of the year when the master lease on all of the building’s office space held by the business information firm RELX expires.

That means any investor that picks up the property will be making a bet on the future demand for space in Manhattan around the time that a large swath of the city’s workforce could have received the Covid-19 vaccine.

A representative for Enterprise Asset Management could not be immediately reached for comment. The property is being marketed by a CBRE team led by Darcy Stacom and Bill Shanahan, who also could not be immediately reached.

One source familiar with the property said the leasehold interest could be valued just shy of $400 million, based on projected office rents for the area. But across the street, the medical fund manager Deerfield paid $345 million in 2019 to buy 345 Park Avenue South to convert for life-sciences use.

Life-science properties in Manhattan can typically charge higher rents than traditional office buildings, though they cost more to build out, which could alter pricing for 360 Park Avenue South if an investor chooses to go that route. Enterprise Asset Management will also entertain a full sale of the building if an attractive offer comes along, according to a source familiar with the property.

The owner is looking to get a deal done within the next year, as the company has a securitized mortgage with a balance of $204 million maturing next March.

Enterprise Asset Management has owned the building since at least the 1960s. The company was founded by Meyer Steinberg, a Brooklyn native who owned properties in New York and California as well as shopping centers in the Midwest and Southwest.

Steinberg died in 2003 at the age of 84. Property records indicate that one of his daughters, Carol Weisman, took the reins at the company. In 2018, the firm hired former Trinity Real Estate president Jason Pizer as CEO to oversee its holdings.