The former home of the Tribeca Film Festival at 17 Laight St. is in contract to be sold to Richard Coles and Gary Tischler’s Vanbarton Group for $90 million.

The ink is barely dry on the deal, sources said. The 115,000-square-foot building sits on the northern end of the Tribeca block bounded by Varick and Laight streets and St. John’s Lane by Canal Street, and has open views in three directions.

The sellers, controlled by James Bishop’s WhiteStar Advisors of Boca Raton, Fla., with Zach Vella and Justin Ehrlich of VE Equities, paid $56 million for the former warehouse at the end of 2012. They proceeded to buy all the office tenants out of their leases, including Tribeca Film, which received $2.8 million at the end of June 2016, records show.

Vanbarton expects to redevelop the buildings into a premier mixed-use office, retail and lifestyle facility.

The company owns, among others, 45 W. 45th St., 180 and 160 Water St. in Manhattan and 47-16 Austell Place and 35-37 36th St. in Long Island City.

No one returned requests for comment.


A stalled development project at 30 Thompson St. in Soho between Grand and Watts streets is being auctioned by Ten-X, in cooperation with Cushman & Wakefield. Although the opening bid must start at $4 million, pricing is expected to end much higher when the gavel falls.

Back in 1985, Lawrence Gaslow paid $450,000 for the one-story warehouse and mortgaged it for more than $3 million. Over the years, Gaslow transferred it to various family LLCs, the last of which, Silver Street (2010), sold it to a venture of The Mavrix Group, Weis Group and Walker Ridge in 2015 for $13,069,735, while taking back a $9.5 million mortgage.

The developers came up with futuristic plans for an eight-story building with seven residences and automated parking designed by Karim Rashid.

But they are awaiting rezoning approvals to full residential from the current live/work occupancy originally created to encourage artist studios.

Meanwhile, as city luxe condo sales have sputtered and land sales have dragged since the 421-a expired in June 2015, the investors got antsy and the property was listed with “aspirational pricing” by C&W, generating some interest but no buzz.

“Right now, the market is trying to find itself and our client wants to sell,” said James Nelson, who is leading the C&W team. The auction process was chosen, Nelson explained, “to create urgency when it doesn’t exist.”

“This is an amazing site to build a single-family home or townhouse or stick with the plans for condos, which are rare in Soho,” Nelson added.

The 29-foot-by-94-foot site can be developed to about 13,600 square feet.

New renderings that are less “Jetsons” and more genteel were also created by architect Marco Marcellini.

Pierre Bonan, vice president of Ten-X, said, “The reserve price is unpublished and confidential, and while there is a preliminary reserve, the seller can lower it prior to the auction that begins on Aug. 22 and ends Aug. 24.”


It’s all about the space.

A Hudson’s Bay space crunch at Brookfield Place coupled with an offer they couldn’t refuse for a floor at 2 Park Ave. has sent Jason Binn’s luxury lifestyle magazine, DuJour, spinning off into its own location.

As we first reported Tuesday at nypost.com, DuJour’s crew will be moving from 2 Park Ave. to its own spots at 530 Seventh Ave. on Aug. 29.

The three dozen staffers have been sharing space on the fourth and fifth floors with one of its original investors — the Gilt Groupe — with Binn as its chief adviser.

To pump up its own digital sales and marketing, Richard Baker’s Hudson’s Bay Co., which also owns Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue, bought Gilt in January for $250 million.

In deals represented by CBRE, Hudson’s Bay is moving its own HQ to Brookfield Place, where it will also open a Saks Fifth Avenue store and a Saks OFF 5th nearby.

Recently, in a transaction reported by the Real Deal, CBRE brokers subleased Gilt’s fifth-floor space of 49,694 square feet at 2 Park to the Trade Desk.

The growing ad tech firm will move from a smaller spot at 386 Park Ave. South. Asking rents are $64 per square foot, according to CoStar.

That sent DuJour scouting on Midtown South and landing at 530 Seventh Ave. The company will have two private spaces within Space 530 on the mezzanine — operated by the Savitt Partners building ownership.

Binn could not be reached, but sources say despite the separate identity and offices, they will “of course” continue to work together.