The land under the Lipstick building is up for grabs — and could attract record pricing as funds and global interests seek stable city investments with upside on the horizon
SL Green Realty Corp., which owns the land, has hired Howard Michaels of the Carlton Group to market the investment it has owned in part since 2007, sources told The Post. SL Green has owned all of the land since 2010.
The 650,000 square-foot, 27-year old building on 53rd Street and Third Avenue was designed in pinkish mauve granite in an oval shape by John Burgee and Philip Johnson for Hines — leading to its nickname.
The building is operated separately by a group led by Inversiones y Representaciones Sociedad Anóma and Guess? founders Paul and Maurice Marciano under a lease that runs to April 30, 2077.
RSA has a 49 percent stake, Marciano Investment Group — the owners of Guess? — has 42 percent and three small investors own less than 4 percent each, documents show.
The building operators have an option to purchase the ground — also known as the fee — on April 30, 2020 for $521 million, but that may also provide an opportunity for the land owner to regain control of the building, sources said. The current rent to the landowner is just over $16 million per year but would rise in 2020.
The 350,000 square foot lease of its largest tenant, the law firm Latham & Watkins, ends around 2021.
The building was in the news in recent years because it was the home to Bernard L. Madoff Securities when the firm’s massive Ponzi scheme became known.
In 2007, SL Green bought its first piece of the land when Michaels brought in SL Green and the then-affiliated Gramercy Capital to buy the land when he arranged the financing for an Israeli-led group to purchase the building.
None of the companies returned calls for comment.
