In an ingenious deal for downtown, Deutsche Bank is in the process of acquiring one of the former AIG headquarters buildings from Youngwoo & Associates and its Korean banking partners, Kumho Investment Bank.
Terms of the deal could not be learned.
Our Wall Street spies — not to be confused with those Russian carpetbaggers — tell us the complicated scheme involves breaking down the walls that separate four to five floors between the non-landmarked building at 72 Wall Street and 60 Wall St., the bank’s adjacent leased building on its west side.
This work would be done in order to level out and extend all of the bank’s trading floors into the two buildings.
Donald Trump, who owns the nearby 40 Wall St. said, “It’s a great location and makes a lot of sense especially in light of the fact that they control the monumental building next door.” Paramount Group now owns the large and modern 60 Wall St. that includes a public atrium with waterfalls and plants.
The deal to combine the buildings involves a lot of permissions, due diligence and engineering work which is now underway. Because the elevations of these two building are not lined up, the work would require several interior slabs to be completely removed and reinstalled.
Bill Shanahan and Darcy Stacom at CB Richard Ellis sold the AIG two-building headquarters at 72 Wall and the historic 70 Pine Street to Youngwoo and Kumho for $150 million just last August, and as we’ve previously told you, have been marketing 72 Wall on their behalf for a sale or long-term net lease.
Sources say this would likely be a sale. “The [bank] is obviously paying more than Youngwoo paid, and they want to control that whole block,” said one of our sources.
The trading floors would only be accessible from 60 Wall St., but Deutsche Bank would use the distinctively arched 72 Wall St. entrance lobby to reach the upper floors of the 16-story building.
Developer Young Woo also wants to retain a portion of the first floor and open up a smaller, arched entrance — technically at 74 Wall St.– to run through the entire building to the former Post Office retail space in its rear on the south side of Pine Street. He would also “open up” this area along the east side of Pearl Street by removing the marble walls and creating walls of glass to liven up the two narrow streets for the future office and residential visitors to 70 Pine St. across the street.
The lower floors of 70 Pine St. are being offered by Cushman & Wakefield for rent at $35 a foot as office space with the top of the 1.1 million square-foot Art Deco tower slated to become hotel and residential.
“It wouldn’t be a surprise because they are committed to downtown and it would be a welcome expansion,” said Liz Berger, president of the Alliance for Downtown who was unaware of the deal and project. “Deutsche Bank is a very important Lower Manhattan company.”
Deutsche Bank had no comment. Neither Young Woo nor CB Richard Ellis returned calls for comment.
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Durst Fetner Associates has purchased the $131 million note on the residential development site at 855 Ave. of the Americas from iStar Financial, setting itself up to complete the foreclosure process and take ownership.
An auction sale will occur within the next 90 days, said Hal Fetner, a partner with the Durst family.
The site encompasses the entire block front between West 30th and 31st streets in the former Flower District.
Over the last decade the avenue has become lined with brand new apartment towers all the way to West 23rd Street.
The property was slated for an approximately 355,000-square-foot development by Yitzak Tessler and the Chetrits with a design by Costas Kondylis.
New architects are being interviewed to develop a “green” building to fit within their portfolio, said Fetner. The note, he added, was purchased at a “modest discount.”
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Rain Africa is also coming to Rockefeller Center this fall.
The South African- based bath, body and home products retailer will open in 1,247 square-feet at 30 Rockefeller Plaza — next to Tumi — on West 49th Street, between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas. The asking rent was $200 a square foot, sources said.
Michael Stone of Cushman & Wakefield scoured the city for the beauty ten ant while Tishman Speyer Properties represented itself.
The chain carries handcrafted bath, body and pampering accessories in eight stores in South Africa and one in Amsterdam.
