AIG may have finally signed a contract to sell its dual building headquarters at 70 Pine and 72 Wall Street.
Sources advised that the overseas buyers will pay around $100 million for the 1.05 million square feet of offices connected by a skywalk. The buyers expect to create a mixed-use development that could include residential and retail.
But because of anti-terror legislation, the Dept. of State will have to approve any overseas buyer.
“The buyers would have been carefully vetted because neither AIG nor the brokers at CB Richard Ellis want to have egg on their faces,” said one source. Korean and Russian groups were mentioned as possible buyers.
The buyers also have to plunk down at least $10 million as a deposit at the contract signing.
“AIG was very firm and did not want any contingencies in the contract,” said a competing bidder.
The CB Richard Ellis marketing agents did not return calls for comment and as it was after hours, the AIG spokesman did not answer the phone.
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The city’s newly released final property tax roll has a market value of $795.6 billion — 1.9 percent lower than the $811.1 billion in market value of last year’s final roll.
But as we warned you in January, because most rising values are phased in over a five-year period, even though values are declining with the bad economy, the amount of billable assessed value is up by 6.7 percent from last year.
That’s good news for the city tax collectors, but bad news for the owners trying to reduce their property tax costs.
Owners are essentially being advised to come back next year with income and expense statements proving economic distress.
Vacant land values had been jacked up in January — possibly in an attempt to cover-up the tremendous increase made for Yankee Stadium and to inflate the market value of all city land for taxing and bonding purposes.
But after former Finance Commissioner Martha Stark resigned, the Finance Dept. released a list of changed assessments and most of the vacant parcels were bumped back down.
This makes the cost of carrying prospective development sites easier.
For instance, the vacant lot at 158 Madison Ave. which was once the home of Andy Warhol’s Factory but was demolished for redevelopment, had its value rise from $5.58 million to $12.8 million, and is now back down to $5.58 million.
Similarly the vacant lot at 21 W. 34th St. awaiting a retail “taxpayer” project had its AV rise from $2.25 million to $9 million. Its newly revised value is $3.08 million.
The AV at what is to become Related’s project at the Eastern Rail Yards at 400 Eleventh Ave. jumped from $5.85 million to $24.6 million.
That was just brought down to $8.1 million and it’s taxable value fell from $9.61 million to $6.3 million.
Kent Swig is lucking out on another front. His now vacant building and stalled condo project at 25 Broad St. 25/7 went from a market value of $25.05 million and a taxable value of $4.003 million to a revised market value of $9.586 million and a revised taxable value of $2.251 million.
He paid $260 million to the Menins in August of 2005 for their rental building.
Looking back, the late Abe Hirschfeld paid $4.975 million to a lender in 1995 after the former Olympia & York office building had been foreclosed on in 1991 for a $21 million mortgage.
The current poor tourism climate was recognized by Finance in the changes made to the value of the London Hotel, which had its taxable value dropped from $66.98 million to $55.79 million. At the same time, the city’s estimate of its fair market value declined from $320.56 million to $196.14 million.
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In another deal that creates positive absorption, Anheuser-Busch InBev signed a 10-year lease for 31,557 feet comprising the entire second floor of 250 Park Avenue.
The Belgium brewer bought America’s own Bud brand and this office will become its day-to-day management office.
James Sousa and John G. Udell from Weichert Commercial Brokerage and Dana Pike from George Comfort & Sons brought the brewer to the building which has a European feel.
AEW Capital Management Asset manages the property on behalf of its GM pension trust clients.
David Hoffman, Robert L. Billingsley and Wendy Miller of Colliers ABR represented the owner ship in the transaction.
The asking rent was in the low-$70s a foot. The space was the former of fices and trading floors for Raymond James, but the floor has been demolished and the traditional deal included a work allowance and free rent period.
“This is a smaller structure with a brick façade in a sea of glass,” said Hoffman. The second floor has high ceilings and floor to ceiling windows along with modern fiber optic technology.
