After completing a refinancing and an $85 million capital-improvement program, AFI USA wants to sell the belly of the former New York Times Building in Times Square to a luxury hotel developer.
Industry speculation has the property selling for close to $200 million, as it is still a “vanilla box” and will need millions of dollars in work to create a hotel.
Newmark Knight Frank’s team of Jimmy Kuhn and Neal Golden were hired to market the 345,000 square foot future hotel condo portion of the 19-story building at 223 W. 43rd St.
The piece up for sale will include space for about 400 rooms and include a dedicated ground-floor lobby space with 10 elevators. The floors involved include a portion of the lower level and fourth story, plus the fifth through eleventh floors.
“Some are looking at a fifth-floor skylobby and others are drawn to the 11th floor as it has soaring ceiling heights and windows,” said AFI General Counsel Laurie Golub.
The condo by-laws and declaration will be negotiated with the new buyer, she said.
The top floors will be turned into about 26 luxury residential condos by AFI, but could be swept into the negotiations for hotel condos.
The recent renovation program included installing new windows, elevators, mechanicals and HVAC systems throughout the building.
Meantime, restaurants are being added to the lower 215,000 square feet of retail that already includes Bowl-mor Lanes and Discovery Times Square.
The building in 2009 was at the center of a legal fight involving the building’s financing, and was settled late last year when lender Five Mile Capital was given a 50 percent stake in the property and senior lender Banco Inbursa of Mexico provided $267 million in financing.
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The Rudin family already owns 130 W. 12th Street — one of the former St. Vincent’s Hospital Buildings — and they are now planning to renovate the 14-story Art Deco modernistic building for residential use.
An application to install new windows is expected to be filed with Community Board 2 today, sources said. Rick Cook of Cook + Fox will be the architect for the environmentally friendly redevelopment.
The Rudins declined comment.
To help the hospital resolve an earlier bankruptcy, the Rudins had forked over $55 million in the form of a mortgage on the so-called Martin Payne Building.
With 14-stories and terraces, and a combination of medical offices and apartments, the Rudins saw it as an interesting future play. The building was completely vacated last year.
Earlier this year, we spotted documents transferring it in lieu of foreclosure as the hospital stopped making payments on the loan.
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The Pfizer Building at 685 Third Avenue is being marketed by Darcy Stacom and Bill Shanahan of CB Richard Ellis.
The real estate company became the pharmaceutical giant’s go-to broker earlier this year.
Pfizer bought the 31-story building in 2003 for $250 million with great fanfare and government subsidies but had begun exploring subleasing options two years ago without success.
According to CoStar, the pharma company now occupies but will vacate the majority of the 559,755 square foot tower, which also has a few re tail tenants.
The best deal will be made by a potential buyer who comes in with an anchor tenant in hand, as a vacant building will depress its value in the current market.
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In yesterday’s column, Craig Reicher‘s title was incorrect. He is a vice chairman of CB Richard Ellis and led the Willkie Farr & Gallagher renewal for 355,000 square feet at 787 Seventh Ave.
