NEW YORK CITY — JLL has arranged the $88.5 million sale of a 76,000-square-foot residential development site located within a Qualified Opportunity Zone in the Long Island City area of Queens. The site is zoned to allow a total buildable area of 444,000 square feet. Bob Knakal, Stephen Palmese, Brendan Maddigan and Jonathan Hageman of JLL represented the seller, an undisclosed private investor, in the transaction. Christopher Peck, Andrew Scandalios, Rob Hinckley, Jeff Julien and Nicco Lupo of JLL arranged an equity partnership with Bridge Investment Group on behalf of the buyer, a joint venture between The Domain Cos., L+M Development Partners and The Vorea Group.
NEW YORK CITY — Cottonwood Group, a Los Angeles-based private equity real estate firm, has provided a $105 million bridge loan for the refinancing of The Six, a newly constructed office building located at 106 W. 56th St. in Manhattan. The 79,214-square-foot building offers a tenant lounge, conference facility and views of Central Park. The borrower was locally based developer Savanna. The transaction is the seventh investment to date through the Cottonwood Real Estate Founders Fund that launched in May. Leo Leyva, Chris Caslin, Robyn Pellegrino, Jennifer Chung and Samantha Epstein of Cole Schotz P.C. represented Savanna in the deal.
NEW YORK CITY — CBRE has negotiated the $63 million sale of a future multifamily development site in the Long Island City area of Queens. The buyer, North Carolina-based Grubb Properties, plans to build a 17-story, 317-unit residential tower with 9,000 square feet of retail space at the 54,000-square-foot site. Demolition permits for the existing two-story building on the site were filed in May. Dan Kaplan and Elli Klapper of CBRE represented the seller, a private real estate family consisting of three limited liability companies, in the transaction. Handel Architects is the architect of record for the project.
NEW YORK CITY — Denver-based investment firm EverWest Real Estate Investors has purchased a 70,500-square-foot warehouse in Queens from Wharton Industrial for $57.2 million. The rear-load facility features a clear height of 30 feet and is situated on a 2.9-acre site in the Maspeth neighborhood. Mo Beler, Aaron Appel, Jonathan Schwartz, Adam Schwartz, Keith Kurland and Michael Diaz of Walker & Dunlop represented Wharton Industrial in the deal. Stephen Feinberg represented EverWest on an internal basis. The property was fully leased to multiple local food distributors at the time of sale.
NEW YORK CITY — Charlotte, N.C.-based Grubb Properties will develop 8 Carlisle, a 50-story apartment building that will be located in Manhattan’s Financial District. Grubb Properties acquired the site from New York-based Pink Stone Capital Group, which purchased it in 2011 and helped assemble the air rights and construction permits as Grubb’s development service partner. In addition to 22,000 square feet of retail space, the property will feature 400 units that will be operated under Grubb’s Link brand, which provides housing geared to renters earning between 60 and 140 percent of area median income (AMI). A construction timeline has not yet been finalized.
BAY SHORE, N.Y. — JLL has arranged $113 million in construction financing and $55 million in joint venture equity for the capitalization of a 418-unit multifamily project in the Long Island community of Bay Shore. The property, which will be built in two phases, will consist of 334 market-rate apartments and 84 workforce housing units, as well as 1,650 square feet of retail space. Amenities will include a pool, outdoor grilling stations, a business center and coworking lounge, fitness center, clubrooms, game room and pet washing station. Andrew Scandalios, Rob Hinckley, Jeffrey Julien and Nicco Lupo of JLL arranged the joint venture equity with institutional investors advised by J.P. Morgan Asset Management on behalf of the developer, TRITEC Real Estate Co. Michael Gigliotti, Geoff Goldstein, Kelly Gaines and Jackie Ferrer of JLL sourced the four-year, floating-rate construction loan through Truist Financial Corp. and Santander Bank.
NEW YORK CITY — Edward J. Minskoff Equities Inc. (EJME) and J.P. Morgan Global Alternatives have broken ground on a 240,000-square-foot office project at 29 Jay St. in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood. The site originally housed the distribution operations of Arbuckle Coffee & Tea and was rezoned in 2018 to allow for higher-density office use. Architecture firm Marvel designed the building, which will also house 12,000 square feet of retail space. Construction is expected to last about two years.
NEW YORK CITY — Google has announced plans to acquire St. John’s Terminal, a 1.3 million-square-foot office redevelopment underway in Manhattan that will anchor the search engine giant’s Hudson Square campus. Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) intends to purchase the development site at 550 Washington St., which the company signed a lease agreement for in 2018, for approximately $2.1 billion. The company is exercising its purchase agreement with the landlord and developer, an ownership group comprising Toronto-based Oxford Properties Group and CPP Investments, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Journal also reports the transaction is the most expensive sale of a single U.S. office building since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, citing data from research firm Real Capital Analytics. The sale is also among the priciest for a single office property in U.S. history. Google plans to open its offices at 550 Washington by mid-2023. Although the company expects to operate the office with a flexible hybrid approach to in-office versus work-from-home concepts in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Google says that “coming together in person to collaborate and build community will remain an important part of our future.” The St. John’s Terminal transaction is expected to close in …
NIAGARA, N.Y. — Boston-based Atlantic Capital Partners has brokered the sale of Wegmans Plaza, a 122,876-square-foot shopping center in the Upstate New York community of Niagara. Regional grocer Wegmans anchors the property, which was 80 percent leased at the time of sale. Justin Smith, Chris Peterson, Shannon Older, Sam Koonce and Molly Lynch of Atlantic Capital Partners represented both unnamed parties in the transaction.
NEW YORK CITY — New York City-based Lument has launched an investment sales and advisory group dedicated to affordable housing. Cliff McDaniel will head the initiative and serve as senior managing director. McDaniel’s team includes managing directors Derek DeHay and Chris Bergmann. They will join Timothy Bracken, also a managing director, who moved to Lument earlier in 2021, as founding members of the group. Lument is a commercial real estate finance company comprised of legacy firms Hunt Real Estate Capital, Lancaster Pollard and RED Capital Group. Lument is an FHA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and proprietary lender. The investment sales and advisory functions of the new group will complement existing financial services. According to McDaniel, the affordable housing team will provide access to thousands of lending, asset management and LIHTC relationships that Lument has established over the years.