Commercial loft building on W28th St. trades for $48m

Real Estate Weekly,  July 11, 2007  

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

A 12-story Chelsea/Penn Plaza commercial office building located at 229-239 West 28th Street, featuring high ceilings, large floor plates, and abundant light and air, has traded for $48.35 million to Steve H. Klein of Joss Realty Partners LLC, a New York-City based owner/investor and operator of commercial properties.

Eastern Consolidated chairman and CEO, Peter Hauspurg, with Brian Ezratty, vice chairman, executive directors Eric M. Anton and Ronald A. Solarz, and Scott Ellard, director, Financial Services, exclusively represented the sellers, AEW Capital Management L.P. and Colliers ABR, Inc. Mr. Ezratty procured the purchaser.

"This building is typical of the better commercial loft buildings in the Penn Plaza/Chelsea submarket, and its location is prime," said Ezratty. "An added advantage, and one that drove the sale, is that by mid 2007, a big block of space totaling 80,486 s/f can be made available which could help in repositioning the building as an upscale office destination." Just completing its transition from accommodating companies in the printing industry, 229-239 West 28th Street now caters primarily to office-oriented users paying annual rents averaging $17.64 per square foot for the upper floors, approximately half the market rate for the area. It is 85% occupied by predominantly full-floor tenants including such well-known names as Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization and The Fitch Group.

According to Ezratty, "The new owners plan to continue to upgrade the asset and cater to more upscale loft/office users.

Key tenants in neighboring buildings include Martha Stewart Living at 221 W. 26th Street, The Swedish Institute at 226 W. 26th Street, Costas Kondylis Architects and Stella Adler Studios at 31 West 27th Street, The Fashion Institute of Technology at 236 West 27thStreet, and Der Skutt Architects at 44 W. 28th Street.

COPYRIGHT 2007 Hagedorn Publication
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning