70 Pine Street (Christian Johnston)
Venerable New York real estate dynasty Rose Associates has taken the lead role at 70 Pine St., the vacant landmark skyscraper still awaiting conversion to apartments after two disappointing false starts.
Rose Associates quietly bought the widely reported stake previously held at 70 Pine by Nathan Berman’s Metro Loft Management, Realty Check has learned.
AIG’s former headquarters will have up to 1,000 rental apartments in 750,000 square feet and 40,000 square feet of retail. Completion is slated for late next year or early 2014.
That’s all according to Luxembourg-based Eastbridge Group, the financial muscle behind 70 Pine’s rebirth. Completion is slated for late next year or early 2014.
There’s no word on how the top-floor observatory will be used — a unique Art Deco space with wraparound windows and vertigo-inducing balconies.
Rose Associates declined to comment on the stake in the project it quietly acquired in May.
Just two months prior, Berman told the New York Times he planned to convert the 66-story giant into 700 rental apartments and perhaps a 300-room hotel.
But “I am no longer associated with 70 Pine Street,” Berman told us yesterday. “I sold my interest to my partners” — Eastbridge, which in turn brought in Rose Associates.
The sale is not recorded in public records because it was an internal partnership transaction. But details of the deal matter less than investment in the project by a pre-eminent family-owned New York real estate company.
While Metro Loft is well-accomplished with 3 million square feet in its portfolio — and previously converted classic addresses 20 Exchange Place and 63 Wall St. to apartments — Rose Associates has developed more than 30 million square feet of residential space. Its activities include development, management, consulting, marketing and leasing.
Rose’s arrival will hopefully lead to a successful end of the saga of 70 Pine St., a skyline icon for 80 years. It will eventually be home to thousands of new residents in what’s still one of downtown’s few remaining corners that is quiet after dark.
The transformation of 70 Pine has hit a few potholes. AIG sold 70 Pine and a small adjacent building in 2009 for $150 million to Kumho Investment Bank and New York developer Youngwoo & Associates, who planned to turn them into condo apartments.
After Youngwoo left the partnership, Kumho sold 70 Pine alone to Metro Loft and Eastbridge last winter for $205 million. The changes in ownership raised fears that 70 Pine would be flipped repeatedly without work being done. But crews were wheeling equipment in and out of a Pearl Street entrance yesterday.
Berman said his decision to exit 70 Pine had nothing to do with the property, but with wanting to concentrate on other Metro Loft projects downtown, including the conversion of vacant 443 Greenwich St. into 100-plus “ultraluxury” rental apartments.
*
Two more office tenants have signed on at Equity Offices’ 1140 Sixth Ave.
Hedge fund Knighthead Capital took 12,750 square feet, moving from 623 Fifth Ave., and Grace Beauty took 7,466 feet, moving from Carnegie Hall Tower.
Both leases start in the $80s per square foot. Blackstone-owned Equity Offices recently reclad the tower in reflective glass and modernized its lobby and systems.
Josh Glick repped the landlord in-house along with Jones Lang LaSalle’s Doug Neye and Ryan Masiello repped the landlord; JLL’s Scott Panzer and Jeff Fischer repped Knighthead; CBC Hunter’s Michael Okun and Richard Selig repped Grace.
The 240,000-square-foot tower aimed at financial boutiques is more than 50 percent leased.
*
In the second phase of a major Citibank retail branch sale offering, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s Capital Group is marketing seven more prime Citibank locations. The offering is expected to generate bids in the $100 million range.
The bank branches include three on the Upper East Side, two in Brooklyn, one in Forest Hills and one in The Bronx.
Kenneth L. Zakin, part of a Capital Group team including Randall E. Liberman and Hymie M. Dweck, said each of the properties has 10 years left on an existing Citibank lease with extension options.
Earlier this year, Zakin’s team marketed 11 Citibank branches owned by the same partnership. Several deals have closed, and others are in negotiations.
Noting that robust demand for “quality retail locations with strong credit tenants is resulting in compressed cap rates,” Zakin said the Citibank assets are “anticipated to trade at a 4 percent cap,” due in part to location, below-market rents and the tenant’s creditworthiness.
*
Anya Hindmarch, a London-based designer specializing in handbags, shoes and accessories, is coming to 795 Madison Ave.
The company just signed a 12-year lease for a 2800 square-foot, two-level store previously occupied by Tanino Crisci. Asking rent: $1.4 million a year.
Landlord EGAT America was repped by Prudential Douglas Elliman Dana Commercial Group’s Gary Dana, Rick Dana and Adam Kramer. Lansco’s Robin Abrams repped the tenant.