The original, iconic Bowlmor Lanes at 110 University Pl. has a new landlord: Billy Macklowe, who bought long-term control of the building through a complicated “sandwich” lease position, sources said.
Macklowe — fresh off closing on his purchase of the office building at 386 Park Ave. South a few weeks ago — bought the Bowlmor leasehold from a partnership which had long controlled the roughly 60,000-square-foot property near Union Square.
Adding to the complexity, sources said the leasehold had previously been split into two separate pieces held by different partnerships. The building is also home to a GMC garage. Bensemon Investments has held title to the address since 1976, according to public records.
Bowlmor has been at its current location since 1938. Once strictly a place for serious bowlers, in recent decades it’s become a celebrity mecca with broad popular appeal.
Parent company Strike Holdings, founded by Tom Shannon, also owns the giant new Bowlmor near Times Square and branches in five other states. But it’s the original facility steps from thriving Union Square that has the mystique.
Precisely how Macklowe’s deal was structured couldn’t be pinned down due to the storm. So confused was the situation that it first appeared that Harry Macklowe, Billy’s father, was the buyer, which proved false. The men now run entirely separate companies.
Numerous calls to Billy Macklowe’s office and his rep were not returned.
A call to Avison Young broker Vincent Carrega, who was said to have been involved in the deal, was not returned yesterday.
Our sources said Billy Macklowe’s move effectively makes him the landlord of Bowlmor, as well as the garage and other businesses at the address, for the next 72 years.
It was not known how many years Bowlmor has left on its own lease, nor whether the change of landlord would have any effect on it.
But sources said Macklowe’s investment could be a strategic move with an eye toward future redevelopment potential. A new structure of around 125,000 square feet could replace the nondescript current structure as of right, insiders noted.
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An eerie silence has descended since we reported last week that Related Cos. was trying to change aspects of its long-term lease with the MTA for the 26-acre Hudson Yards site.
Last Tuesday, MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota told us Related was seeking to “amend” unspecified aspects of the deal, which was written up two years ago but has yet to close. That followed a day of denials by Related that they wanted to change anything.
Now the MTA has clammed up, as has the city’s Economic Development Corp., which is not a direct party to the prospective lease but which has, to put it gently, a major interest in seeing the deal get done.
Our story ran in a week full of cheery news stories elsewhere about Hudson Yards without a hint of any glitches. We hope whatever Related wants to change is merely a hiccup. Everyone wants to see the new Coach tower rise.
It almost certainly will — the question raised by the new Related-MTA talks is when, not if. Lhota cautioned that any amendments will need MTA board approval.
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Chic handbag maker LeSportsac has snared a new, 860-square-foot store at 248 Columbus Ave. The space between 71st and 72nd streets was formerly home to Betsey Johnson.
Walker Malloy’s Rafe Evans, the Upper West Side’s most prolific retail dealmaker, represented the landlord; Zelnick’s Jason Turner “ably repped the tenant,” Evans said, who added the rent was nearly $390 square foot, close to the $400 ask.
And while we hate to get in the middle of feuding brokers, Evans is in the thick of it with Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Faith Hope Consolo.
Two weeks ago, we wrote that Consolo and colleague Joseph Aquino had “arranged” an Alexis Bittar lease at 410 Columbus Ave., based on their claim that they repped tenant and landlord. We also quoted Consolo as saying Bittar paid $330 a square foot after a bidding war broke out, on top of an original ask of $300.
But Evans tells us that he, not Prudential Douglas Elliman, was the landlord’s agent; that the rent was an “unambiguous” $240 a square foot and, “the ask was never $300, and there was no bidding war.”
Evans e-mailed us a Walker Malloy online listing which named him as the agent for 410 Columbus and stated the 900-square-foot space had an asking rent of $20,000 — about $266.66 per square foot. The listing also said the space was rented but did not say at what price.
Asked to comment on Evans’ claim, Consolo insisted, “When I started on this deal [for Bittar], Rafe was the rep for the building, but something happened beween him and the landlord” — and then he was no longer the agent.
“Rafe doesn’t know what the deal was made at,” Consolo said. “I think there’s some bad blood with the landlord.”
Evans responded by sending us a commission agreement he received, dated Oct. 5, from landlord Orleans Realty stating how much he will be paid as the “sole broker involved in obtaining the tenant” — Alexis Bittar.
That’s all from Realty Check, folks — if Evans and Consolo want to take it further, that’s what lawyers are for.
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Here’s more doom and gloom for hurricane week:
The Manhattan third-quarter report from tenant representation firm Cresa is bleak indeed, starting with the ominous sentence, “Tenants continue to show little appetite for expansion,” and it’s downhill from there.
Now, as a firm that represents tenants exclusively, it’s not unreasonable to expect Cresa to portray the market in a light that’s most favorable to tenants.
That means a depiction of landlords with a surplus of space to rent and a scarcity of companies eager to claim that space.
But Cresa’s take is not so different from that of Boston Properties President Edward Linde, who said in an investors’ conference call last week that the Manhattan market is “stuck in neutral.”
Cresa characterizes the market not in terms of vacancy, but “availability” — defined as space now vacant or on the market up to 24 months from now.
So its new data will sound worse than recent reports of vacancies between 9 to 11 percent depending on which part of Manhattan.
Cresa found overall availability in Manhattan stalled at 13 percent.
That’s no disaster. The real issue is the continued unwillingness of tenants to commit to large-scale expansion.
Of 14 transactions of 100,000 square feet or more over the quarter, six were renewals.
“The low level of participation by financial services, legal services and insurance has placed a drag on leasing activity,” Cresa noted, foretelling “a continuation of softness in tenant activity at least for the near term.”