JOSEPH Moinian has signed a contract to buy the towering 295 Madison Ave. for around $180 million.
The 300,000-foot Art Deco building on the southeast corner of East 41st Street is being sold by the family of the late Sarah Korein.
Sources attending the Real Estate Board of New York luncheon last week at the Sheraton told us that Moinian tried to buy the 46-story building 20 years ago directly from Korein but didn’t succeed until now.
Brian Ezratty of Eastern Consolidated was the exclusive sales agent. He ducked our inquiries about this quiet, off-market transaction.
Moinian, one of the most prolific city buyers, also didn’t return calls.
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Last fall, Dubai-based Istithmar discussed a deal to buy Bush Tower at 130 W. 42nd St. from American Properties but never got anywhere.
In October, however, Istithmar did spend $75.95 million to buy their adjacent development site at 140 W. 42nd St., which will be folded into Istithmar’s redevelopment of the former Knickerbocker Hotel.
The site lies between Bush Tower and the Knickerbocker – the current office building at 6 Times Square with the big Gap store – which the investment group also bought last year for $300 million.
Now the oil sheiks’ failure to capture the approximately 210,000 foot Bush Tower could become your success, for a mere $165 million.
That’s because all that negotiating, so we heard at the REBNY luncheon, has apparently now inspired American Properties to list the building with Nat Rockett and Tom Beneville of Jones Lang LaSalle.
Neither the brokers nor an American Properties official returned calls for comment prior to press time.
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As Post colleagues Suzanne Kapner and Paul Tharp reported, Istithmar is also negotiating to acquire the Barney’s retail chain.
Here in the city, above Barney’s, sits the 255,000 foot “Country Club” office building at 660 Madison Ave. that is filled with hedge funds and financial firms.
That ritzy office condo is now in contract to Gruppo Zunino of Milan for $375 million, which works out to $1,470 a foot.
Investment broker Douglas Harmon of Eastdil Secured orchestrated that deal.
Next week, Harmon will receive offers on 450 Park Ave., one of the premiere buildings that garner $100-plus a foot in office rents.
Potential buyers say each of its 335,000 feet will trade for around $1,650 a foot.
Of the total, 35,000 feet are retail on the southwest corner of 57th St.
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Three well-known Upper West Side rent regulated apartment buildings – The Parc Cameron at 41 W. 86th St.; the Parc Coliseum at 228-238 W. 71st St.; and Parc 77 at 50 W. 77th St. – were sold to the real estate investment trust Equity Residential Properties last week for $180 million.
The buildings have a total of 479 apartments and four stores.
The sellers are a longtime local family. Rama Bassalali of RMB Properties represented both parties in the quiet transaction,
Bassalali did not return calls for comment.
Equity also owns several of the former Trump buildings along Riverside South.
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The law firm of Emmet, Marvin & Martin renewed its 64,000 foot lease at 120 Broadway for an additional 12 years.
Emmet, which was founded in 1805, and is one of the oldest law firms in the U.S., has had its offices on the 32nd and 33rd floors of the 40-story building for the past 15 years.
Studley’s Howard Nottingham, David Goldstein, Matthew Barlow and Jeffrey Peck represented the law firm, while Roger Silverstein represented building owner Silverstein Properties.
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Developer Alan Silverman of the Andalex Group called from Vienna to tell us that his sons, Andrew and Alex, bought the 301-room, five-star Veneto Hotel & Casino in the Via Espana business district of Panama City a week ago for $90 million.
“We really latched onto something,” said Silverman. “There’s a lot of development now in Panama.”
Silverman sniffed that Donald J. Trump‘s project in a different area “didn’t even get off the ground yet because they aren’t ready to build . . . and they are still figuring out what to do. He’s also not allowed to have a casino, where we are.”
In Long Island City, the family’s Arris Lofts project is 86 percent sold out with prices raised three times to a current rate of $650 a foot.
“It’s a whole different thing than Manhattan, with 14- to 17-foot ceilings and huge showers,” a giddy Silverman added.
