London-based Chelsfield Group picked up the ground lease at 580 Broadway, an ornate office building in Soho spanning 128,000 square feet, for $50 million, real estate records show.
Miami’s BridgeInvest provided $35 million in financing for the acquisition. Nathaniel Mosery’s Broad-Prince Realty owns the land beneath the building.
“We believe in the vibrancy of Soho,” said Chelsfield America director Paul Apollonio, describing the neighborhood as a place where New Yorkers live, work and play.
He added, “It’s unusual to find such a big property in Soho.”
Chelsfield plans to renovate the building with an eye toward “the future of workplace,” according to its website. Leasing the ground beneath 580 Broadway gives Chelsfield the right to collect rent from building tenants.
The deal represents a new chapter in New York for Chelsfield, which was active in the city in the 1990s — converting the Westbury hotel to apartments, as well as owning 379 and 387 West Broadway in a joint venture with Ralph Lauren Group — before being taken private in 2004.
Chelsfield reopened its New York office in 2016 and advised the Olayan Group on its $1.6 billion acquisition of 550 Madison Avenue, formerly the Sony Building.
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Tenants at 580 Broadway include Epic Commercial Realty, Simon Wallace Design, Cast Iron Real Estate, Concierge New York, and shared office space provider Breather, which Industrious acquired last May.
While many people continue to work virtually — causing uncertainty for the office market — the percentage of employees nationwide who reported working from home in March fell to 10 percent from 13 percent in February, according to Labor Department figures released Friday.
Soho will see an uptick in development in the coming years thanks to a rezoning approved in December by the City Council. Officials estimate thousands of new apartments will be built there in the coming decades, with hundreds of affordable units.
Demand for commercial space in Soho outpaced supply in the last quarter of 2021, when average asking rents there were $78.86 per square foot per year. Retail foot traffic in the neighborhood had risen to pre-pandemic levels by the end of last year, according to Placer.ai.
Broad-Prince Realty did not immediately return a request for comment.