ANOTHER of the Macklowe Properties’ dominoes is heading to a greener pasture.
This week, Somerset Partners is teeing up to acquire 527 Madison Ave. for around $260 million, or $1,100 a square foot. That’s even more than the $234,641,309.00 that city deeds show Macklowe allocated for the building just last year.
The 236,124 square footer is one of the two smaller gems in the Macklowe portfolio that’s being sold by Deutsche Bank through Eastdil Secured.
As we advised last week, the other, the 174,369-foot Tower 56 at 126 E 56th St., is heading into the open arms of Transwestern Investment Co. for about $160 million, or around $925 a foot.
Douglas Harmon of Eastdil would not confirm Somerset’s possible win, but noted the contest is still not yet over.
“The death of the Manhattan trophy sales market has been grossly exaggerated,” Harmon quipped. “We are in process of, and have completed, almost $10 billion in sales this year so far.”
A team of investment advisers from Eastdil is still sifting through the many offers for the remaining Macklowe/Equity Office Partners portfolio – including Worldwide Plaza – that is being sold by lender Deutsche Bank, complete with financing.
Despite a general malaise in the sales market, that portfolio will likely bring in nearly $7 billion – just around what Harry Macklowe paid Blackstone for six former Equity Office buildings just a year ago before the credit markets tumbled.
To pay off short-term, cross-collateralized debt this year, Macklowe was forced to start selling the EOP portfolio and other assets, including the GM Building, which was just purchased by a venture led by Mort Zuckerman‘s Boston Properties for $2.8 billion.
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One company that’s trying to stay off the list of companies with credit problems is Broadway Partners.
That firm was also aggressively buying assets last year – including, like Macklowe, a large portfolio of EOP properties – and is now selling pieces around the country to raise the $200 million it needs to pay off its own short-term loans.
Around here, according to industry newsletter Real Estate Alert, Broadway has given Cushman & Wakefield the listing for a 49 percent stake in 340 Madison Ave.
The expected $310 million price tag would recapitalize that office building at $630 million, or $842 a foot.
Coincidentally, this was a Macklowe project that was completely redeveloped to 748,000 feet before Broadway bought it in 2006 for $550 million.
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City Sports has signed on for a 15,612 foot retail lease in the Rock Center area building that Joshua Muss and son Jason bought back in March for $54.5 million with an eye on upgrading it into a boutique office property.
For its second city location, the sports fashion retailer signed an 11-year lease for a three-story store at the 17-story building at 64 W. 48th St. near the NBC Studios.
Ground-floor side street asking rents in the area are about $125 a foot.
The Boston-based chain already has a store at 390 Fifth Ave. at West 36th Street and was brought to the new location by Jona than Krieger of Robert K. Futterman & Associates.
Jedd Nero of CB Richard Ellis represented the Muss Development owners.
