AFTER a decade of individual deal making, the dynamic duo of Steve Witkoff and Larry Gluck has joined forces again, partnering with Westbrook Partners to buy 405 Park Ave. for $180 million in an off-market deal.
Apparently, the partnership was formed when the three realized they were bidding against each other on the same deal.
Rama Bassalali of RMB Properties represented Westbrook, while Eastern Consolidated brought in Gluck.
The sellers are quiet, wealthy, non-royals from Dubai.
Witkoff and Gluck grew up in the business together and were partners for more than a decade. They started with small apartment buildings but kicked off the end of the 1990s real estate recession with a buying spree that turned the wunderkinds into industry darlings.
Plopping down $9 million for Downtown’s nearly empty One Broadway was a daredevil feat in 1996, as was their purchase later that year of the Daily News Building on East 42nd Street for over $103 million.
The two eventually went their separate ways as the Witkoff Group and Stellar Management, with Witkoff eventually buying the Woolworth Building and Gluck’s Stellar Management investing in Independence Plaza.
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The group that bought Central Parking is now putting a half-dozen prime Midtown development sites on the market in a deal that could garner between $250 million and $300 million.
The sites host 1,200 lucrative parking spaces but can morph into 650,000 buildable feet – or more if you buy air rights and slip in garages underground.
“The locations are so prime and so central they are almost viable to keep as garages but are also valuable as development sites,” said Richard Baxter of Cushman & Wakefield, which has been hired to shop portions of the entire 2,850-piece portfolio in the U.S., Puerto Rico and 10 international locations. Central has over 425 locations just in the tri-state area alone.
The local sites on the market are: 12 W. 48th St. in Rockefeller Center; 332 W. 44th St.; 430 W. 37th St. near the Javits Center; 159 W. 48th St.; 138 E. 50th St. and 135 E. 47th St.
“This one is screaming, ‘I’m a hotel,’” laughed Baxter, who will work on the assignment with the rest of the Fabulous Foursome of Ron Cohen, Scott Latham and Jon Caplan.
The public company was gobbled up last month by Lubert-Adler Partners, Henry Kravis‘ Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Chrysalis Capital, with locals at Worldwide Development.
“They are taking advantage of an incredible real estate market to capitalize on the development climate,” added Baxter.
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Bianca Jagger will soon have a new property owner to sue.
The investment group BlackRock Realty Advisors signed a contract to buy all 177,000 feet of 530 Park Ave. for $211 million, sources tell us. This works out to $1,192 a foot for the residential apartment building.
Back in May, we reported that the 139-unit rental at 61st Street in the high-rent Plaza Hotel neighborhood was going on the market through the Fab Four at C&W.
Baxter declined to confirm the deal but the Katz family partnership apparently signed with the BlackRock investors last week.
They didn’t return a call for comment.
Jagger still has Apt. 18D filled with what she advises in court papers is moldy stuff. She claims it is all infested, which is why she can’t live there, and therefore does not pay rent to the owners.
Where she does live, we don’t know. We only know that she doesn’t want to give up this well-located pad, and still has ongoing litigation, represented now by out-of-town counsel.
Even if her apartment does finally get cleaned up for good, however, fancy rents are skyrocketing into the $5,000-and-up-a-month zone, so we hear BlackRock does not intend to make this building a condo.
The Zeckendorfs, Joseph Moinian and Ofer Yardeni are among those whose bids missed the top mark and are now left seeking other deals.
“If there is one transaction I regret not buying it is 530 Park,” sighed Yardeni, a partner with Joel Seiden in Stonehenge Partners. “I missed by a few million and I made a mistake. If they are smart they will create the very best rental apartment building. You can’t re-create this.”
However, Yardeni and Seiden are smiling over their purchase of 330 E. 63rd St. for $39 million, which comes to a little bit over $400 a foot.
“You can’t find land for this [price],” he said. “I love it and will change its name to Stonehenge Sixty-Third.”
The seven-story building has 92 mostly rent-stabilized apartments that pay around $1,000 a month, while that market is now at $3,000. “We will renovate and upgrade and bring to the same level as the other Stonehenge Properties,” Yardeni said.
About two years ago, Yardeni missed buying this when it was sold through Bob Knakal at Massey Knakal Realty Services to the Heller Family.
“Now I made a deal with the seller who is a true gentleman and taught me how to drink scotch,” he said.
This time Iliza Avital of Eastern Consolidated was the broker – and also downed some jiggers to seal the deal.
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While giving lots of ink to real estate in the New York Observer, Publisher Jared Kushner had time to help convicted dad Charles contract to sell 17,500 apartments in five states for over $1.95 billion.
AIG Global Real Estate Investment Corp. and an affiliate of Morgan Properties, of King of Prussia, Pa., are paying just over $1.9 billion and assuming $921 million in debt for 86 complexes with 16,784 units, while the Kislak Co. is paying $42 million for 844 units in Maryland.
Darcy Stacom‘s team at CB Richard Ellis and Goldman Sachs rounded up the purchasers.
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A prime vacant 13,000-foot retail space that includes spectacular signage at 5 Times Square is finally hitting the market for as much as $5 million a year in rent through Cory Zelnik of Zelnik & Company.
The last tenant, Times Square Brewery, went into bankruptcy and Disney bought the lease, expecting to make a splash next to its New Amsterdam Theater.
Fast forward 18 months and the space is now controlled by Yonkers-based AVR Realty, which bought the Ernst & Young-inhabited tower last fall for $1.25 billion. Ground floor space in the area goes for north of $400 a foot.
“This piece lends itself to a branding opportunity,” noted Zelnik.
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There was the White Album and now there’s the White Building.
Yes, 650 Sixth Ave. in Chelsea has gone all white: white lobby, white kitchen, white bath and white walls.
It looks like Huckleberry Finn came by. To up the artistic ante, marketing magician Michael Shvo has Mark Siegler and his 401 Projects’ photo gallery hosting tonight’s opening party.
Lenny Kravitz and Mikhail Baryshnikov are his BFFs so don’t be surprised if they show up.
Designers Erin Fetherstone, Phillip Lim, Alexander Wang, socialite Bonnie Morrison, and photographer Sante D’Orazio are also on the guest list.
