A prime Meatpacking District corner is going on the market and could fetch $100 million-plus — yet the broker handling the offering says the 63,000 square-foot, three-property parcel “is not for development, but for investment.”
The buildings include 220 feet of choice retail frontage wrapping the northeast corner of Ninth Avenue and 14th Street, home to tenants including Scott Conant’s three-star Italian restaurant, Scarpetta, casual eatery The Diner, and luxury cosmetics boutique L’Occitane.
The portfolio encompasses a bunch of addresses — 44-48 and 50-52 Ninth Ave., which are a mix of retail and residential across the avenue from the Apple store; and 351 W. 14th St. and 362-364 W. 15th St., a 42,000 square-foot apartment complex known as Gansevoort Mews, which runs through the block, explained Brookfield Financial’s Eric Anton. He expected offers to be in by April.
Anton said the current owners, a local partnership, assembled the properties in the 1980s when the MPD was still used for meatpacking. He predicted “tremendous investor demand” for the buildings, which are now part of one of the city’s premier entertainment and dining districts, where the Meatpacking District, the West Village, Chelsea and the High Line all intersect.
Although the low-rise buildings theoretically have around 25,000 square feet of unused development rights, Anton said redevelopment would be inhibited by restrictions in the city-designated Gansevoort Market Historic District, and by the fact that most of 82 apartments in the Mews are rent-stabilized.
Instead, it’s a long-term investment play: “This is an offer for somebody who believes rents will only rise” at the site,” he said. “The sexy storefronts will remain.” The package includes a currently vacant, 14,000 square-foot retail space next door to Scarpetta.
Anton said there’s no official asking price, but the offer “might well” fetch over $100 million.
The once-dowdy office building at 211 E. 43rd St. is being spruced up for the 21st century. Meadow Partners, which bought the 211,000 square-foot address in early 2013, is spending $15 million on a new lobby and to upgrade systems, elevators and even the toilets.
The improvements helped Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s William Cohen and David Emden, the exclusive leasing agents, to lease 60,000 square feet in recent transactions with seven new tenants, including AWS Construction, Caliber Associates and the UN missions of Costa Rica and Mauritius.
Cohen said, “We are going the extra mile to cater to tech, creative and media tenants, among others, by opening up the layouts” with built-to-suit and pre-built spaces and upgraded connectivity.
All the older leases roll in the next 24 months, Cohen said, which will create “full-floor opportunities throughout the building.”
He called turnkey deals “in the low to upper $40s well below market in East Midtown, just over a block from Grand Central Terminal.”
The redone building will include at least six outdoor terrace opportunities, the brokers said.
Asked what “opportunities” meant, Emden said with a laugh, “They exist, but they might not have a door yet, which might not be a bad thing this winter.”