The four-way partnership which owns a 26-storey office and retail building on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue has to agreed sell the prestige property for a reported $595m (£349m).
The current owners of 530 Fifth Avenue — Rockwood Capital, Jamestown, Murray Hill Properties and Crown Acquisitions — acquired the building, two blocks west of Grand Central Terminal, in January, 2012, for $390 (£229m). Since then more than £10m (£5.8m) has been spent on renovations and upgrades.
If the paperwork is completed by the September deadline a new partnership will take over the ownership and management of the half-a-million square foot building.
Thor Equities, which specialises in urban real estate development, leasing and management, negotiated the off-market sale before bringing in New York-based RXR Realty and General Growth, the second-biggest US shopping-mall owner, as partners. It’s understood the investors plan to separate the office and retail portions of the building, with RXR owning and managing the offices and Thor and General Growth controlling the shops.
At present the building is about 68 per cent occupied, with tenants that include Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance and Diageo North America, an alcoholic-beverage merchant. About 100,000sq ft of office space is available for immediate leasing.
There is around 40,000sq ft of retail space, mainly on the ground floor, with long term tenants including a branch of JPMorgan Chase & Co,and fashion merchants Desigual and Fossil. Average retail rents along Fifth Avenue, from 42nd Street to the Rockefeller Centre, have remained cheaper than the north side, but have doubled to more than $1,000 (£587) per sq ft in the past three years.
The new owners are expected to ask $1,500 (£881) per sq ft for the storefronts and around $80 (£47) per sq ft for the offices.
“Fifth Avenue will always serve as an iconic location in New York City for retail and office space,” said Michael Phillips, chief operating officer of Jamestown, in a statement. “Once we repositioned 530 Fifth Avenue with a renovated lobby, internal upgrades and amenities our investors saw an opportunity to profit from a sale.”
According to the New York Post: “The 1956 vintage address is part of the fast-evolving Fifth Avenue scene between 42nd Street and the historic start of its most glam stretch beginning with Saks Fifth Avenue at 49th Street … New investment is rampant and schlocky discount stores are giving way to classier ones.”
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