RONALD Winston just got some golden bricks to go along with his retirement parachute.
As Page Six advised back in May, Winston is finally leaving the family jewels in the full control of the Canadian mining firm that bought the business, which was founded by Winston’s father Harry in 1932.
Now we’ve discovered that Ronald Winston has just sold his 50 percent interest in the townhouse at Fifth Avenue and West 56th Street that has been home to the jeweler for nearly $63 million to the Paramount Group.
The Winston townhouse is a mere 27 feet-by-100 feet, and at five stories, totals 13,500 feet.
His brother, Bruce, owns the other half and the edifice remains leased long term to the jeweler, Paramount’s attorney Robert Bressman confirmed.
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Stanley Chera and the Carlyle Group yesterday afternoon closed on their $525 million purchase of an interest in the retail portion of Kushner Cos.’ 666 Fifth Ave.
Kushner kicked some money back for an interest in the Carlyle-Chera joint venture, but will retain the upstairs offices for itself. Kushner bought the building just a year ago for a record-setting $1.8 billion for the single asset.
To complete the deal, Carlyle kicked in $170 million in equity. But equity today is not the hard part – it’s the debt, stupid.
With angels on their side, Barclay’s provided $325 million for a first mortgage, and SL Green Realty Corp. kicked in $135 million for a mezzanine loan.
Those of you with calculators for brains added this to $630 million. Those extra bucks will go toward costly items like the build-out of the new Abercrombie & Fitch store that we warned will go into about half of the current space occupied by Brooks Brothers, which is leaving the building.
Howard Michaels of the Carlton Group rounded up all the players and their pennies.
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London-based broker Tullett Prebon Holdings Corp. has renewed early and expanded to 100,759 feet at 101 Hudson St. in Jersey City.
The 63,372 foot lease for the company’s North American headquarters was expanded by 37,387 feet and both were extended out to end in 15 years.
John Cefaly, Robert Lowe and Ed Duenas of Cushman & Wakefield represented the tenant in the transaction.
Building owner Mack-Cali Realty Corp. was represented in-house by Thomas Savoca.
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The office rental market is suffering dents but so far, there are no cracks.
Cushman & Wakefield Research Director Ken McCarthy said if the current projections of 40,000 office jobs are actually lost citywide, the vacancy rate would go to 9.2 percent.
Currently, the average vacancy rate is 7.1 percent, while average rents are $85.18.
The 5.6 percent vacancy in direct space has an asking rent of $89.45 a foot. The sublease market, which has an average asking rent of $74.76, is up by 50 percent, but that’s moving from a scant 1 percent last quarter to today’s 1.5 percent of a total 240 million feet of Class A, or top tier, office space.
Meanwhile, Manhattan Class A rents are still up across the board from last year, even though spots like Times Square South, Hudson Square and the World Fin ancial Center have asking rents that are down a sliver from the first quarter.
“We’re still in a space-starved city. . .even though the pendulum is swinging in another direction,” said Joseph Harbert, COO of Cushman & Wakefield, which issued its 2nd quarter report yesterday.
