Two trophy office buildings that comprise a full block in Midtown are selling to two different parties for a combined total of more than $3.6 billion.
The Post has learned that 787 Seventh Ave. will be in the hands of CalPERS, the California public employees pension fund, sometime next year for just over $1.9 billion.
Additionally, the adjacent 1285 Ave. of the Americas is being purchased by Scott Rechler’s RXR Realty for $1.7 billion, the Real Deal reported on Thursday. Both buildings have about 1.7 million feet of space.
Contracts are being negotiated now and are likely to be signed before the end of the year; with closings in the first quarter of next year.
Axa Financial owns 787 Seventh, which was built in 1985 with Edward Larrabee Barnes as architect, and also owns 1285 Sixth Ave. in a venture with JPMorgan. The financial firms hired Eastdil Secured, investment brokers Douglas Harmon and Adam Spies to conduct the marketing and sales process.
This would be the second-large purchase for RXR this year since it bought the Helmsley Building at 230 Park Ave. for $1.2 billion with Blackstone.
The Post’s Steve Cuozzo reported in October that UBS was advised its 900,000 foot lease would not be renewed at 1285 Sixth Ave. — built in 1960 designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and has been seeking between 700,000 feet and 900,000 feet elsewhere.
Rechler could now try to keep that tenant, whose lease does not expire until 2020.
Global investment groups, real estate investment trusts and locals have been making offers for either one or both of the buildings, which will rank among the most-coveted and record-priced trophies on the market this year.
Sky-high sales that closed this year include 11 Madison Ave. for $2.28 billion; 1095 Sixth Ave. for $2.23 billion; the Waldorf Astoria hotel for $1.95 billion; and the Crown Building at 730 Fifth for $1.775 billion.
As of Sept. 2015, CalPERS had $27.1 billion invested in real estate out of its total $283.9 billion funds.
In a move towards transparency, just before Thanksgiving it revealed for the first time that it had paid out $3.4 billion to Wall Street equity managers since 1990 while reaping $24.2 billion in profits. To further its goal of reducing payments to money managers, it is also selling its stakes — worth $3 billion — in private real estate funds to Blackstone.
Since the public fund lost $500 million while investing in the 2006 $5.6 billion Stuyvesant Town deal, CalPERS has also shifted from investing in more affordable housing to market-rate properties.
None of the parties returned requests for comment.
