If you need final confirmation that the gritty, old industrial-era Bowery was being swept away for good, consider this just-completed deal:
Acadia Realty Trust has snatched up four-story 210 Bowery for $7.5 million. The purchase price sounds puny until you realize it set a record for the street of $815 per square foot.
The building on the fast gentrifying block between Spring and Prince streets is currently home to the Markell restaurant equipment company.
Acadia is a publicly traded REIT that owns and/or manages 10 million square feet of retail in the US. It’s a developer of the 1.8 million square-foot City Point project on Brooklyn’s DeKalb Avenue, which this month signed Century 21 as an anchor tenant.
Acadia is also marketing the 10,000 square-foot former home of the Stage Deli at 200 W. 54th St.
Eastern Consolidated’s Adelaide Polsinelli, Robert Khodadadian and Gary Meese brokered the Bowery deal for the seller, an investment partnership, and also brought in the buyer.
Polsinelli said 210 Bowery is triple net-leased to Markell only through December 2014, and can support up to a 15,000 square-foot new development.
The building was once the Monroe Hotel for men back in the Skid Row days. The Bowery is now home to hotels of quite a different sort, as well as to the New Museum of Art and fashionable stores and restaurants.
But another deal said to be in the works could give Acadia a much larger site to play with. Sources said Acadia has its eye as well on 212 Bowery next door, which would double its sidewalk frontage.
That four-story building happens to be owned by Markell, which sources said wants to unload it for an unspecified “high” price.
Acadia executive vice-president Joel Braun declined to discuss the situation other than to say, “We’re very interested in the Bowery.”
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Further indicative of the downtown retail frenzy, a Chinese textile company has bought a retail co-op at 85-87 Mercer St. for $15.2 million. The space consists of 3,571 square feet on the ground floor and 2,500 below grade. It’s currently partly occupied by Australian sports and swimwear store Zimmermann, with which the buyers negotiated an early lease termination.
The store remains open for now. But what’s remarkable is, Zimmermann just moved in earlier this year, and with considerable fanfare. No word exactly when they’ll move or where they’ll go next.
The purchase is valued at $3,622 a square foot. The space is part of a landmarked cast-iron SoHo building between Broome and Prince streets.
The seller, a pair of local artists, was repped by Douglas Elliman’s Puopolo Team duo of Louis Puopolo and Alex Furst. Corcoran Group’s Karen Kemp acted for the buyer.
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Prop N Spoon, a leading supplier of props and furniture for TV, movies and special events, is leaving the commuter-overrun Penn Station area for the creative wilds of Long Island City.
The company has leased 45,165 square feet of office/flex space at 32-00 Skillman Ave., aka the Swingline Building. Prop N Spoon is moving out of Vornado-owned 330 W. 34th St.
Studley’s Jarod Stern repped the tenant and Sholom and Zuckerbrot’s Lawrence T. Smith repped the firm’s new Queens landlord, Stellar Management.
Stern said the 250,000-square-foot former Swingline Stapler factory meets Prop N Spoon’s need for a more efficient floor plate as well as proximity to Long Island City’s many creative enterprises, including the Silvercup and Kaufman Astoria Studios and the Museum of the Moving Image.
Stern wouldn’t discuss rents other than to chuckle when we said we assumed it would be less than in Manhattan.
Other brokerage sources said office rents in the one-time industrial neighborhood ranged from $10 to $30 a square foot.