Investors Compare Manhattan Buildings With T-Bills
The tightening of underwriting standards and of the availability of capital seems not to have affected sales of residential apartment buildings across the five boroughs, as some had feared.
The Katz family is the owner of two prize residential apartment houses on Park Avenue, including the 20-story, 116-unit rental building at 737 Park Ave. at the corner of East 71st Street. Last week, a joint venture of BlackRock Realty Advisors (a partner with Tishman Speyer in the purchase of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village last year) and investor Patrick Freyberg entered into a contract to purchase the 19-story, 190,227-square-foot rental apartment building located at the corner of East 61st Street from the Katz family trust. The building is across the street from the Loews Regency Hotel. The joint venture is paying about $212.5 million for the 139-unit building, which has approximately 8,000 square feet of professional space. According to real estate sources, the joint venture plans to make substantial renovations and maintain the property as a rental building.
Last month, CDP/PSP Stonehenge Partners closed on the acquisition of a 90,000-square-foot residential rental building at 330 E. 63rd St. The 60-year-old building, on the south side of 63rd Street between First and Second avenues, has a total of 93 units. The purchaser, Stonehenge Partners (with other investors), currently owns and manages more than 2,000 rental units in Manhattan. Its partner in the purchase is Cadim, a division of the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, and a member of the Caisse’s real estate group.