●cushman & Wakefield
Vornado pockets $94M for Hicksville mall
Cushman & Wakefield has completed the sale of Broadway Mall, a 1,136,618 s/f enclosed retail center in Hicksville, Long Island.
The multi-level center traded for $94 million.
Seller Vornado Realty Trust was represented in the transaction by Cushman & Wakefield’s East Rutherford, N.J.-based Metropolitan Capital Markets Group (CMG) team of Andrew Merin, Gary Gabriel, David Bernhaut, Brian Whitmer and Nick Karali, along with Dallas-based Tom Salanty, Miami-based Mark Gilbert, and New York-based John Alascio.
The buyer was KKR and Broadway Mall Pacific, a partnership between Pacific Retail Capital Partners, Clifton Realty and Peter Fair of Continuum Partners.
“This was a rare Long Island mall offering, and with its great demographics it attracted considerable interest,” said Merin.
“It was widely marketed, with more than 120 confidentiality agreements signed and nearly 20 tours. That amount of interest is clearly an indication of the fact that retail continues to be a strong performer in the heavily populated tri-state area.”
Completed in 1956 as an open-air retail center originally known as Mid-Island Plaza, Broadway Mall was enclosed in 1972, renovated and updated in 1991, and underwent additional improvements to its roof in 2001.
More than 90 percent occupied, it is anchored by IKEA, Macy’s, Multiplex 12 Cinema and Target.
●eastern consolidated
Flushing Landmark hits the market
Eastern Consolidated has been retained as the exclusive agent to market for sale the three-story, mixed-use office and retail building at 41-60 Main Street in Flushing, Queens.
The asking price for the 92,500 s/f asset, commonly known as the Flushing Landmark building, is $92 million.
The property is 97 percent occupied with 2,400 s/f of office space available. It also features 250 ft. of frontage near Sanford Avenue.
“Flushing has become known internationally as a major business center and is one of the fastest growing submarkets in New York City, making this premier asset attractive to global investment firms,” said David Schechtman, an executive managing director with Eastern Consolidated, who along with senior director Gary Meese and associate director Abie Kassin, exclusively represents the seller.
“There is tremendous upside potential given the building’s strong tenant base and the high demand for office space in this market.”
Current tenants at 41-60 Main Street include MetLife, Capital One, the New York Community Bank, and East West Bank.
●massey knakal
Top dollar for Madison retail
A mixed-use building at 1064-1066 Madison Avenue, with 40 feet of shopping district frontage, was sold for $26 million.
The five-story building contains 11,539 s/f and Eli Zabar’s E.A.T. restaurant is on the first and second floors, with its office on the third floor.
The top two floors contain eight occupied residential units, four free-market and four rent-stabilized. The property has an additional 16,461 s/f of development rights.
The sale price equates to $2,253 psf a 2.6% cap and $928 per buildable square foot.
“This sale is exemplary of long term ownership capitalizing on the recent spike in activity of the sale of retail driven properties along the Madison Avenue corridor. This is due to the almost doubling of retail rents on the East 60s and East 70s in the last 18 months,” said Massey Knakal’s Thomas D. Gammino, Jr., who exclusively handled this transaction.
● Walter Samuels
Investors take Second Ave. subway properties
Real estate firm Walter & Samuels, Inc. announced that an investment group headed by its chairman, David I. Berley, has acquired two properties situated on the corner of East 96th Street and Second Avenue, where the future Second Avenue Subway station will open.
The investment group most recently closed on 302 East 96th Street, a three-story, 96-vehicle parking garage purchased in an off-market acquisition from a longtime owner. Walter & Samuels was the sole broker.
Late last year, the group acquired 300 East 96th Street, a 13,500 s/f mixed-use building featuring five floors of residential apartments and 2,000 s/f of street level retail.
Walter & Samuels represented the investment group in the off-market transaction; Eastern Consolidated represented the owner.
“These acquisitions give us a presence on two corners where the Second Avenue Subway line hubs will be located,” said Berley, who also heads an investment group that owns 260 East 72nd Street.
“The Second Avenue corridor, and these two locations in particular, will be extremely active and important.”
● BESEN & ASSOCIATES
Besen brings Midwood buildings to market
Besen & Associates has been exclusively retained to market two multifamily properties at 1106 and 1201 Avenue K in Midwood, Brooklyn.
Located one block of the Coney Island Avenue and Avenue J retail corridors, the walkup buildings consist of 140 apartments, two offices and two units for community facility use.
The listing is being handled by Ben Weiss and Jackie Himmelstein of Besen & Associates, who had previously sold the buildings to the current owner. The package is on the market at an asking price of $36 million.
The buildings are both four-story brick structures built in 1924, offering a combined total of 115,000 gross square feet, with internal courtyards and usable basements. They occupy full block fronts caddy-corner to each other.
● BERKO & ASSOCIATES
Buyer planning glass condo at Blatt Billiards
Berko & Associates announced the $24 million sale of 809 Broadway, the former Blatt Billiards loft building, south of Union Square to IDM Capital.
The buyer plans to build a 15-story commercial/residential tower on the site.
“We were able to raise significant interest and had multiple offers from qualified buyers,” said Joe Berko, president and founder of Berko & Associates. “We sold the building for $2 million above asking.”
Berko represented both the seller and the buyer in the transaction that officially closed this week.
Berko said many of the interested buyers were major developers who found the cast iron loft building in the heart of Greenwich Village to be “particularly efficient for a luxury conversion.”
In May, Blatt Billiards, represented by its principals Ronald Blatt and Bruce Roeder, inked the deal to sell the 23,152 s/f building between 11th and 12th streets that includes an additional 7,045 square feet of air rights.
Berko said IDM Capital filed plans to boost the height of the 55-foot-building at 809 Broadway by 199 feet, adding 10 stories to the five-story structure.
A plan on the company’s website shows a modern, glass-faced building with black vertical elements and identifies it as a “$50 million residential development.”
They have hired ODA Architecture to design offices on the second – eighth floors, with a full-floor residential unit on the ninth floor, capped by a duplex and a triplex.
Blatt Billiards, a pool table manufacturer, owned the 126-year-old building since 1972, but was a tenant at the location before then. It has been manufacturing in New York City since 1923.
It now plans to relocate its manufacturing to New Jersey and moved its showroom to West 38th Street, according to Berko.
IDM Capital, headquartered in the former Blatt Building, is headed by CEO Paz Kaspi, a former Africa Israel USA executive, and chairman Pinni Sarfati.
