The Vanbarton Group has outplayed a field of global bidders to sign a contract to buy The Vogue — a 320-unit apartment building with offices, retail and parking at 990 Sixth Ave. — for north of $315 million.
The late Holocaust survivor and Polish partisan freedom fighter Isidore “Izzy” Karten came to America and later built the 24-story building on the full eastern blockfront between West 36th and 37th streets.
After it was completed in 1987, his children, Harry Karten, Marcia Toledano and Bernice Bookhammer, hired Douglas Harmon and Adam Spies, who led the Cushman & Wakefield investment team that included Adam Doneger and Marcella Fasulo.
Along with the all-market-rate apartments — most with balconies — the property has 65,000 square feet of professional office space, a three-level 120-space parking garage run by Icon Parking into 2020, and 12,000 square feet of semi-schlocky retail in the lively corridor between Herald Square and Times Square that is ripe for upgrading.
Previously, Vanbarton’s Richard Coles and Gary Tischler beautifully repositioned 180 Water St. from offices to apartments, and sold it earlier this year through Cushman & Wakefield to deal partner, Nathan Berman, for $450 million.
“You can expect a similar transformation to occur at 990,” said one party familiar with Vanbarton’s thinking who asked to remain anonymous. “This is a perfect rental, and it will take a multiyear repositioning to create and maximize the amenities to serve the market.”
Harmon’s team recently sold the rights to develop 1.3 million square feet of new office and retail at St. John’s Terminal, which is now in contract to Oxford Properties for $700 million. The sellers, Atlas Capital and Westbrook Partners, will retain and develop the residential towers.
Following Harmon’s previous $5.45 billion sale of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, the middle class Starrett City complex owned by the Deane family with stakes held by the Trump family, including President Trump, is now in contract to be sold for $850 million to Brooksville and Rockpoint Group.
