A Tribeca office building is being teed up for a potential residential conversion.
Columbia Property Trust is looking to sell the 1940s-era office building at 101 Franklin Street, pitching the 17-story building as a good candidate for a condominium or rental conversion.
The REIT, led by CEO Adam Frazier, is looking for a price around $115 million, a source familiar with the offering told The Real Deal. That’s roughly 40 percent less than the $205.5 million Columbia paid to buy the building four years ago.
The previous owner had filed plans to convert the vacant building into 107 residential units. But Columbia decided to overhaul the property as a boutique office building with a modern curtain-wall facade designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects.
That renovation plan, however, never moved forward. And with the office market looking bleak, it appears residential may be the best use.
“Like any responsible property owner, we continuously review all aspects of our strategy within the current market to bolster Columbia’s business and pave the way for our next chapter of growth,” a spokesperson for the REIT said. “As part of this process to determine the highest and best use for this asset in our portfolio, we’ve engaged Newmark to explore a potential sale of 101 Franklin.”
Adam Spies and Adam Doneger are heading the Newmark team marketing the property.
Columbia, which was purchased in 2021 for $3.9 billion by the asset manager Pimco, defaulted in January on $1.72 billion worth of loans backing seven properties. The 101 Franklin property was not among the defaulted loans.
The $115 million figure works out to about $560 per square foot for the 205,000-square-foot building. Condos in the area sell for around $3,000 per square foot, and the neighborhood suffers from a dearth of new rental units.
The REIT’s Tribeca property is in good company among Manhattan projects up for new lives.
On the other side of Tribeca, Related Fund Management and Blackstone Group are converting the former rental building known as Truffles Tribeca into condos with an address at 450 Washington Street.
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A little father uptown, the Brodsky Group just struck a deal to convert the iconic Flatiron Building into residential use.
In the Financial District, Nathan Berman’s Metro Loft Management is teaming up with Jeff Gural’s GFP Real Estate and Rockwood Capital to convert 25 Water Street into 1,300 rentals — the city’s largest ever conversion.
Berman and Silverstein are also working to convert 55 Broad Street, and the Vanbarton Group is converting 160 Water Street.