NEW YORK CITY — Glacier Equities, a vertically integrated investment firm, has purchased 10 Grand Avenue, a mixed-use building in Brooklyn that consists of 40 residential units and 14 commercial spaces. The sales price was $17.2 million. The 85,000-square-foot building, whose residential component is currently 68 percent occupied, is located south of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Fortress Investment Group provided acquisition financing to Glacier Equities, which plans to invest about $6 million in capital improvements. Zach Redding and John Barney of B6 Real Estate Advisors brokered the sale of the property. Dylan Kane, also with B6 Real Estate Advisors, arranged the debt.
NEW YORK CITY — CLEAR (NYSE: YOU), a locally based provider of identity verification services, has signed a 119,000-square-foot office lease at 85 Tenth Avenue in Manhattan. The company will occupy two floors at the 11-story building, which was originally constructed in 1913. Jared Horowitz and Jason Perla of Newmark represented the tenant in the lease negotiations. Edward Riguardi and Anthony Cugini of Vornado Realty Trust and Stephen Winter of Related Cos. represented building ownership on an internal basis.
NEW YORK CITY — Cushman & Wakefield has arranged the $64.7 million sale of The Metro Portfolio, a collection of six multifamily properties in Manhattan. Robert Shapiro, Andrew Berry, Michael Gembecki, Charlie Gravina, Austin Fabel and Nicholas Kontos of Cushman & Wakefield represented the seller, Metro Management, in each transaction. The buyer was not disclosed.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Cleeman Realty Group, an investment advisory firm with offices in New York City and Miami, has negotiated the sale of Airport Plaza, a 97,000-square-foot shopping center in Syracuse. The sales price was $4.2 million. Airport Plaza was fully leased at the time of sale. Sam Seelenfreund of Cleeman Realty represented the undisclosed buyer and seller in the off-market transaction.
NEW YORK CITY — Verizon has signed a 140,000-square-foot office lease to be an office anchor tenant at Essex Crossing, a 2 million-square-foot mixed-use development under construction on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Josh Kuriloff, Andrew Braver and Peyton Horn of Cushman & Wakefield represented Verizon in the lease negotiations. Taconic Partners is developing Essex Crossing in partnership with L+M Development Partners, BFC Partners, The Prusik Group and Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The development will ultimately comprise 350,000 square feet of office space, along with 1,000 residences, 300,000 square feet of retail space and 100,000 square feet of green space.
NEW YORK CITY — Locally based firm JDS Development Group has topped out The Brooklyn Tower, a 93-story residential tower that connects to the historic Dime Bank Savings Building in the borough’s downtown area. Designed by SHoP Architects and rising 1,066 feet, Brooklyn Tower will house 150 residences for sale and 400 units for rent, as well as approximately 100,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. Thirty percent of the rentals will be designated as affordable housing. Sales are scheduled to begin in early 2022, and leasing is slated to begin in mid-2022. The development team expects the first units to be available for occupancy in late 2022.
NEW YORK CITY — Target will open a 90,000-square-foot store at Kings Plaza, an enclosed shopping center by California-based REIT Macerich (NYSE: MAC) in Brooklyn. Target will backfill a three-story anchor building previously occupied by J.C. Penney. An expected opening date was not released. Other retailers at Kings Plaza include Macy’s, Zara, Burlington, Primark and Michael Kors.
NEW YORK CITY — Greystone has provided two Fannie Mae acquisition loans totaling $17.5 million for a pair of affordable seniors housing properties totaling 151 units in the New York City area. In the first deal, Greystone originated a $12.4 million loan for Highland Avenue Senior Apartments, an 88-unit community in Yonkers that was built in 2008. In the second transaction, the company provided $5.1 million in acquisition financing for 2120 Hughes Avenue, a 63-unit property in The Bronx that was constructed in 1995. Dan Sacks and Ilan Bassali of Greystone originated the loans on behalf of the borrower, Heritage Affordable Communities LLC.
By Taylor Williams For lenders and investors in New York City’s affordable housing market, accurately underwriting rent growth, operating costs and long-term asset appreciation can be a tricky proposition in today’s economic environment. To be fair, buyers and financiers of affordable housing properties in many U.S. markets are being forced to adjust and recalculate their metrics due to forces they can’t control. Yet macroeconomic factors like rising inflation, which puts heavy pressure on construction and operating costs, can often seem more acute in the Big Apple, where the cost of living and doing business is already higher than virtually anywhere else in the country. Economic Drivers The labor and materials costs for the renovations and rehabilitations that many affordable housing communities need are rising. According to Producer Price Index data supplied by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, for the month of August, the latest report available at the time of this writing, the aggregate cost of construction materials had risen by 19 percent from August 2019. Much of this rise in materials costs is due to disruption of the global supply chain via COVID-19, causing developers of much-needed housing stock to incur heftier budgets and longer construction timelines on …
NEW YORK CITY — Bathhouse, a provider of high-end spa services, has signed a 34,328-square-foot retail lease at 7 West 21st St. in Manhattan’s Flatiron District. The location within Friedland Properties’ 289,809-square-foot residential building will be the company’s first in Manhattan to accompany its space in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg area. Jason Pruger and Lucas Kooyman of Newmark represented Friedland Properties in the lease negotiations. Ross Eisenberg of RDE Advisors Inc. represented Bathhouse.