SL Green sells Soho retail in week’s only mid-sized investment deal

It’s not news that high interest rates have drastically slowed the pace of investment sales in recent months. But last week was uneventful even by recent standards. 

Just one deal involving commercial properties valued between $10 million and $40 million hit New York City records last week — the first time that’s happened since August 2020.

The lone deal was for a retail condo at 121 Greene Street in Soho, which SL Green sold for $14 million to an entity connected to Swiss fashion house Akris. A CBRE team led by Daniel Kaplan represented SL Green in the deal. The two-unit, 7,200-square-foot property is leased to Warby Parker — which opened its first brick-and-mortar store there in 2013 — as well as designer fashion brand Proenza Schouler. 

Warby Parker renewed its portion of the space for another eight years last summer, Commercial Observer reported at the time.

SL Green bought the property in 2014 for $27.4 million, records show, meaning it sold for about half of what it paid a decade ago. On the REIT’s fourth-quarter earnings call last month, CFO Matthew DiLiberto said the deal, which was then in-contract, is part of SL Green’s plan to sell off about $2 billion in assets to pay down its debts.

The property is across from SL Green’s 13-story, 295,000-square-foot office building at 110 Greene Street, which it bought at a $255 million valuation in 2015. Fashion brand Balenciaga signed on for 7,000 square feet of ground-floor retail at that property late last year.