THE Schack family has decided to sell a major corner of SoHo and pocket as much as $250 million – and this isn’t a fake story from its tenant, the satirical newspaper The Onion.
“This is one of the most exciting properties on the market today in SoHo,” said Richard Baxter of Cushman & Wakefield, which is pitching the place to prospective buyers along with the rest of the fabulous foursome of Ron Cohen, Scott Latham and Jon Caplan.
There are three interconnected buildings on the corner of Broadway and Spring including Nos. 530, 532 and 536 Broadway. There is 125 feet of retail frontage on each street hosting Levi’s, Scoop, Sketchers and Arden B., among others.
Dolce & Gabbana has its showrooms and offices on the entire second floor of all three buildings, which is where they hosted a sample sale last week with lines snaking out onto the street. All other commercial tenants have full floors in at least one building with some configured as duplexes or across two buildings.
Nearly all the leases expire over the next five years.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time and it’s time to move on both in terms of me personally and knowing the right time to dispose of an asset,” said Ken Schack, a third-generation principal of the company, which has owned the buildings for 60 years.
Joining other city families that have taken chips off the brick table, Schack added, “I’d rather be riding my Colnago [an Italian racing bike] than the Long Island Railroad.”
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We hear the LeFrak Organization has signed a contract to sell 2,000 apartments for about $250 million, or $125,000 per unit.
Richard LeFrak declined to comment through his spokesman. His brokers, Darcy Stacom and Bill Shanahan of CB Richard Ellis did not return calls for comment.
Other industry sources tell us the properties are mostly comprised of garden apartments primarily scattered around complexes in Queens, with some in Brooklyn and one in Staten Island.
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The SoHo neighborhood can breathe a sigh of relief now that Dean & DeLuca has renewed its 30,000-foot lease for the next 15 years.
Over the next year, the high-end supermarket chain expects to expand even further into the basement of 560 Broadway at the corner of Prince Street, where it moved 20 years ago as a retailing pioneer.
The ownership partners, 560 Associates LLC, has Newmark Knight Frank Chairman Jeffrey Gural as managing member.
Gural and Donna Vogel of Newmark Knight Frank negotiated the deal on behalf of the owners while Dean & DeLuca was represented internally.
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Orin Wilf has assembled a site on the southeast corner of Third Avenue and 79th Street at 1381-1389 Third Ave. where his company, Skyline Developers, will construct a 150,000-foot luxury high-rise rental building to address the family-size apartment market.
The five existing residential and commercial buildings were bought from three separate owners for $36 million.
One seller, restaurateur Jim McMullen, will lose Annie’s – a restaurant named after his grandmother and in which he is an investor – to the wrecking ball. Hunters restaurant will also shutter.
Meanwhile, Wilf’s 170 East End Ave. is 90 percent sold, with $400 million in sales, while 37 Wall St. is 75 percent leased with 200 tenants in the building where Tiffany and Co. will open its next retail store.
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Investment groups led by GVA Williams executives have sold two former office buildings. The 150,000-foot building at 216 W. 18th St. in Chelsea was vacant and its interiors were already demolished for a residential conversion.
The 12-story building traded for around $50 million to investment partners Harry Jeremias and Harch Realty, who hired GVA Williams to lease it as commercial offices. GVA’s Marty Meyer, Eric Meyer, Richard Plehn and Seth Hecht will oversee leasing the 170,000-foot building, which has an asking rent of $52 a foot.
“It could become a full-building occupancy,” said Eric Meyer, adding that there is potential for a garage and a penthouse apartment, too.
Andy Roos, executive vice president at GVA, said they were a day away from closing the construction loan on the residential project when they got the offer. The bid happens to cash out GVA with the same amount of money that it would have received after a future sellout of the condo units.
Aaron Jungreis and David Berger of GFI Realty Services represented the buyer.
Meanwhile, we previously heard that the 232,000-foot 183 Madison Ave. was sold for around $107 million to a British group making its first investment in the city.
Roos said Rock Joint Ventures has hired GVA to manage the 19-story property, which has façade ironwork designed by French-born Edgar Brandt.
“We were going to take it residential or hotel and had leases with staggered expirations,” said Roos. “We wanted to get a good price but leave a little meat on the bone for the next guy, but we hated to part with it.”
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A new restaurant – dubbed 10 Downing after its upcoming location – cut a deal made possible by the repositioning of 200 feet of frontage at the corner of Sixth Avenue that was formerly used for small medical and travel offices.
“This is not just about one store but about changing the neighborhood,” said Ofer Yardeni, a Stonehenge Partner whose company owns the building. “We took space getting $500 a month and will now get $1.5 million a year.”
10 Downing’s owners, restaurateurs Joel Michel, Vincent Seufert and Stephane Dorian and investor Dan McClure, signed a 15-year lease for the 2,700 foot duplex.
Brokers Christopher Owles and Kristin McCann of Sinvin Realty acted for both sides, with Eric Roth overseeing the work in-house for Stonehenge.
The restaurateurs were previously responsible for notables such as Pastis, 5 Ninth, Rhone, Le Zoo, and Waterloo.
