Thor Equities has just purchased the lower floors of 470 Broome St. on the corner of Greene Street in Soho for $45 million.
Thor, led by Joe Sitt, is a prolific buyer in the area with 20 properties nearby, and is expected to seek a high-end retail tenant for the space.
The 19,000-square-foot commercial condominium covers two cellars and the ground, second and third floors, which were owned and occupied by the high-end mosaic tile company Sicis on the northwest corner of Greene Street.
The upper floors are residential units that sell in the millions of dollars.
Sicis is already planning renovations in The Bronx at a 50,000-square-foot factory at 150 Bruckner Blvd., which it currently rents and is in contract to buy for $14 million. The city’s Industrial Development Agency also approved an incentive package.
“This deal is an important component in helping the company centralize operations and create well-paying manufacturing jobs in the community,” an Industrial Development Agency spokesman said.
A decade ago, the owner of the tile company wanted the Soho building for its retail location, and partnered with Gary Barnett of Extell Development on a condo conversion to make the top floors residential. The partners ended up in a court battle, the Real Deal reported.
Meanwhile in The Bronx, in 2002, the 150 Bruckner site had been the subject of another IDA deal for American Building Supply Corp. But at the end of 2006, ABS sold the building for $5 million to BNS Real Estate.
That company is currently renting to Sicis and is in contract to sell to the now-flush tile maker.
Bounce Exchange — a graduate of the NYU Polytechnic business incubator — is now leaping from 304 Hudson St. to the New York Times Building to take the full 30,917 square feet on the 21st floor.
Co-founded by CEO Ryan Urban, the tech company has been successful at optimizing client retailer and publishing Web sites to convert window shoppers to buyers and entice readers to linger longer.
The fast-growing company had in 2013 leased its current 5,543 square feet on the fifth floor of the Hudson Square building — where Mayor de Blasio held a press conference last spring — which will now be subleased.
Mitchell Barnett, Richard Serko and Bill Lee of Cushman & Wakefield took “BounceX” on a tour of some 90 spaces, focusing on sites below 25th Street in the $55- to $75-per-square-foot range.
When the NYT building came up, Urban said, “We didn’t expect to like it.” But just as building agent and CBRE powerhouse Mary Ann Tighe predicted, when tech companies see ultra-modern office spaces in 24-hour buildings with great technology and floor-to-ceiling windows, they love them.
The in-place tech and HVAC will also save them “millions” in installation costs, Urban noted. While the space gets a lot of light because of the automatic shades, “it doesn’t hit you in the face.”
The interior design by G3 Architecture calls for no private offices, “including me,” said Urban. “We feed off each other’s energy.”
That energy will be activated by tables full of snacks, four refrigerators, several pantries and an iced-coffee keg. A ping-pong table was just brought in, while nap pods will help workers get through long hours. When they arrive in the coming weeks, employees will use the Times entrance and have passes to the Gray Lady’s cafeteria.
Ramneek Rikhy, Arkady Smolyansky, Tighe, Greg Tosko and Sacha Zarba of CBRE worked for the NY Times, which no longer needed the floor.
While the NYT pure-white Renzo Piano-designed building is looking a little drab these days, a spokeswoman for developer Forest City Ratner said the building’s canopies are cleaned year-round, but due to weather, the façade is cleaned only from late March to November. We can’t wait.
New York State’s favorite-son yogurt, Chobani, is moving into the top two floors of 200 Lafayette St.
You may recall this was the amazing renovation that Jared Kushner and CIM Group created in Soho on the corner of Broome Street that JCPenney leased with hopes of making itself hipper.
Kushner and CIM Group later cashed out with a $150 million sale to Sandeep Mathrani’s General Growth Properties.
JCPenney gave up some floors, sources said, and now Chobani will move to 33,560 square feet on the 6th and 7th floors, where it will have access to the roof garden GGP is configuring.
For the last three years, Chobani has been in 11,500 square feet at 72 Spring St.
According to Christopher Owles, the principal at Sinvin Real Estate, who represented Chobani along with James Costello, the yogurt maker will have the same light and air and can now have the test kitchen of its dreams.
GGP was represented by Paul Amrich, Neil King and Patrice Meagher of CBRE, which had an asking rent of $85 per square foot.
Chobani’s 72 Spring space is on the market for sublease through Sinvin at an undisclosed rent.
