NEW YORK CITY — Amerant Bank has provided a $47 million acquisition loan for a 15-story multifamily and retail building in Manhattan. The residential portion of the property offers a mix of one- and two-bedroom apartments, while the retail portion is leased to boutique tenants. The loan was provided to a partnership between Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp, and Black Spruce Management. Additional terms of the loan were undisclosed.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — JLL has brokered the $18 million sale of Crouse Medical Center, a 173,466-square-foot of medical office building in Syracuse. The property comprises two connected buildings that are 88 percent leased to medical tenants including Crouse Health System. Steven Rutman, Ben Appel, Jose Cruz and Rob Rizzi of JLL represented the seller, Brittonfield Associates, in the transaction. ICONIC Property Partners was the buyer.
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — Cronheim Mortgage, a New Jersey-based firm, has arranged a $13.5 million construction loan for the redevelopment of Poughkeepsie Plaza in Upstate New York. Originally constructed in 1958, the 170,966-square-foot shopping center includes three pad sites for a total building area of 175,743 square feet. Current tenants include Home Depot, BJ’s, Hobby Lobby and Best Buy. The loan carries a seven-year term of interest-only payments followed by a 25-year amortization period.
NEW YORK CITY — Helmsley Spear has negotiated a 56,000-square-foot office lease for WeWork at 83 Maiden Lane in the Financial District of Manhattan. The 15-year lease comprises the entire 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th floors of the building, which brings the property to 100 percent occupancy. Kent Swig and Andrew Simon of Helmsley Spear represented WeWork and the landlord, AHRC New York City, in the lease negotiations,
NEW YORK CITY — Whole Foods Market will open a 60,000-square-foot store within 63 Madison Avenue, a 15-story office building in Manhattan. The store will occupy 10,000 square feet on the ground floor of the building and 50,000 square feet on the second floor. The building owner, a partnership between George Comfort & Sons, Jamestown and Loeb Partners Realty, plans to renovate the first and second floors with glass walls and a new lobby. The time frame of the construction was not specified. Peter Duncan, Matt Coudert and Alex Bermingham of represented the landlord on an internal basis in the lease negotiations.
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Hospitality Real Estate Counselors (HREC), a Denver-based hospitality real estate firm, has arranged the sale of a 77-room Hampton Inn in Rochester, in upstate New York. The hotel is located off the Keeler Street Expressway in the northern Irondequiot suburb. Ketan Patel and Mark von Dwingelo of HREC represented the seller, an undisclosed real estate company, in the transaction. The buyer was a regional hotel owner and operator.
NEW YORK CITY — Savanna, a New York City-based development and investment firm, has purchased 360 Lexington Avenue, a 268,383-square-foot office building in Manhattan, for $180 million. Barclays provided a $126 million loan for the acquisition. Savanna will rebrand the 12-story building and implement a $20 million renovation project that will deliver a new full lobby and entrance, bathrooms, corridors and infrastructure upgrades. Grant Frankel, Philip McKnight and Rob Turner of Eastdil Secured arranged financing through Barclays on behalf of Savanna. Cole Schotz P.C. served as Savanna’s legal counsel in the acquisition of the property.
Retail leasing activity across New York City accelerated during the second quarter of 2019, but the market continues to see vast discrepancies in supply-demand balances across various submarkets. In certain parts of Manhattan, year-over-year asking rents declined by double-digit percentages, according to the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) Spring 2019 Report. Midtown East, for example, saw its average asking rent drop by 22 percent from $3,900 per square foot to $3,050 per square foot during this time period. The corridor between 42nd and 49th streets experienced similar activity, sliding 20 percent from an average asking rent of $1,000 per square foot to $800 per square foot. Historically high vacancy and low absorption rates are behind the negative rent growth. Due to the high cost of doing business in New York, landlords have also struggled to backfill spaces vacated by tenants that were victims of the e-commerce world. As a result, property owners are being forced to bring down their tenant improvement allowances and integrate more flexibility into their leases, primarily in the form of shorter lease terms to stimulate cash flows. Midtown East had approximately 100 vacant retail spaces totaling more than 500,000 square feet at the end …
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. — Newmark Knight Frank (NKF) has brokered the sale of 900 and 990 Stewart Ave., two Class A office buildings totaling 462,000 square feet in Garden City, Long Island. The buildings were 88 percent leased at the time of sale. Kevin Welsh, Brian Schulz, Jason Emrani, Rob Griffin, Steven Schultz, Scott Berfas and Dan Oliver of NKF represented the seller, a joint venture of Boston-based The Davis Companies and New Jersey-based Onyx Equities, in the transaction. The NKF team also procured the buyer, a New York-based investor.
NEW YORK CITY — Joseph Tsai, co-founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has agreed to purchase Barclays Center, a 670,000-square-foot sports and entertainment arena that sits at the crossroads of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues in Brooklyn. The multi-purpose stadium is the home of the Brooklyn Nets NBA franchise and the NHL’s New York Islanders. Previous owner Mikhail Prokhorov, through his company Oneexim Sports and Entertainment Holding USA Inc., sold the arena to an entity controlled by Tsai for approximately $700 million, according to the New York Post. In a separate deal, Prokorov sold his 51 percent ownership in the Brooklyn Nets to Tsai, who purchased a 49 percent stake in the NBA franchise back in 2018. Multiple media outlets report the combined Nets and Barclays Center transactions will total more than $2 billion, bringing Tsai’s total investment to more than $3 billion. The transaction requires the approval of the NBA Board of Governors. Tsai is set to become the sole governor of the Nets franchise and owner of Barclays Center once the deal closes, which is expected by the end of September. “We are committed to maintaining Barclays Center’s iconic status by bringing together culture, community and entertainment for our …