Chick-fil-A, the controversial fast food franchise, may be expanding in the Big Apple some time soon if retail brokers get their way.
From high-end luxury brands to regional food concepts, and, yes, Chick-fil-A, real estate professionals yesterday offered The Commercial Observer hints of deals they hope to seal before next year’s journey to Sin City. Read More
Jamestown Properties has purchased the Milk Studios building at 450 West 15th Street from Stellar Management for more than $284 million, city records show.
The 325,000-square-foot, eight-story office building, home to photography studio Milk Studios and an eclectic mix of tech, fashion and creative tenants, borders the High Line.
It’s a symbolic and strategic move for Jamestown, which owns the Chelsea Market across the street and looks to expand its footprint in the heavily-traveled Meatpacking District.
Ironically, city records show that Stellar provided a $150 million loan to Jamestown, which suggests that the move was perhaps more than a kind gesture, but also a play to complete the deal before the end of 2012, as imminent capital gains taxes loomed (the city record was filed on Friday, but shows the deed was finalized December 21). Read More
Shortly after the City Council approved developer Jamestown Property‘s 300,000-square-foot expansion of the gourmet destination Chelsea Market last September, council speaker Christine Quinn ensured that 75 percent of the current ground floor retail space would stay devoted to food vendors.
Locals are wary. The council’s Land Use Committee almost simultaneously signed a legal agreement with vaguer specifications, DNAInfo reports today. That document protected just 60 percent of ground floor space as retail-oriented, with no reference to the allotment for food shops. Read More
Ownership at the Chelsea Market is reportedly renovating 5,700 square feet of space to make way for eight new vendor kiosks, where cooking and food preparation will be on display for its 120,000 weekly visitors.
Most of the space was created when Amy’s Bread moved part of its operations off-site, and the rest will come from the renovation of a loading dock and an office, the New York Times reports.
Leases are currently being negotiated and rates will run in the $200 to $400 per square foot range, and the stores, to be delivered in plug-and-play condition and geared towards start-ups and “less-established” businesses, will be operational as soon as mid-February, said Michael Phillips, COO of Jamestown Properties, according to the Times. Read More
CVS Pharmacy has leased a 14,274-square-foot retail condominium space below Alchemy Properties’ Griffin Court Condominium development at 454 West 54th Street, which was also sold to Heskel Group earlier this month, The Commercial Observer has learned.
The 25-year lease includes 9,000 square feet of street level frontage, set below the eight–story residential towers, where 95 condo units that hit the market in 2010 are roughly 85 percent occupied.
The property is located in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, a first for CVS, and in close proximity to the theatre district. Read More
It was a transaction literally a decade in the making. Earlier this year, a deal between Jamestown Properties and Andy Sung, proprietor of the Korean barbecue restaurant Gaonnuri, came to fruition on the top floor of 1250 Broadway.
Once an otherwise abandoned mechanical room under the ownership of SL Green, the 39th floor space in a building near the edge of Manhattan’s Koreatown was widely coveted by not only Mr. Sung, but also other restaurateurs who saw the space as ideal for an eatery with a view. When Jamestown Properties acquired the building in a venture with Murray Hill Properties, Mr. Sung reiterated his case for leasing the room, although as chief operating officer Michael Phillips insists, he didn’t have to work hard to convince anyone. “We believe that creating the best sense of place and community is what drives tenant retention,” said Mr. Phillips. “There isn’t one size that fits all, and I think being able to make the most of the assets that you have is what makes for good real estate.” After the jump, Mr. Phillips reviews the floor plans for 1250Broadway’s 39th floor with The Commercial Observer and explained what drew Gaonnuri to the building. Read More
Cushman & Wakefield has been tapped as the exclusive leasing agents for 1250 Broadway, a 773,887-square-foot, Class A office building that is jointly owned by Jamestown Properties and Murray Hill Properties, The Commercial Observer has learned.
A leasing team headed by Mitch Arkin, Peter Alden and Michael Blanchard will be joined by Courtney Adham and Lauren Hayes from Cushman & Wakefield’s Strategic Agency Services Group. Read More
The Mortgage Observer has learned exclusively that Capital One Bank has provided a $60 million loan to Jamestown Properties to finance its recent acquisition of 325 Hudson Street, bought in April for $110 million from a joint venture of Young Woo & Associates and San Francisco’s Bristol Group. Read More
Capital One Bank has grown steadily since it was founded by current chairman, CEO and president Richard Fairbank in 1993. Along the way it grew from a mono-line credit card company funded through the capital markets into a more diversified entity with commercial and consumer banking. It managed to make Visigoths funny and capitalize on Alec Baldwin’s Words With Friends meltdown, while simultaneously deepening its reach into lines of business like commercial real estate.
The bank as a whole had $294.5 billion in loans outstanding and $216.5 billion in deposits as of March 31, 2012, according to its first quarter 2012 results. The commercial and multifamily real estate portion of this increased when comparing year-end results recently as well—rising to $15.4 billion for the period ended Dec. 31, 2011 from $13.4 billion the previous year. Read More
Jamestown Properties, the owners of The Chelsea Market and One Times Square, is on the cusp of purchasing The Falchi Building, a Long Island City office property co-owned by Joseph Chetrit for over $80 million.
The deal for the 638,712 square foot industrial-slash-office building on 31-00 47th Avenue, which was first reported by Adam Pincus of The Real Deal, was brokered by Douglas Harmon, Adam Spies, and Kevin Donner of Eastdil Secured. Mssrs. Harmon and Spies did not immediately respond to messages requesting comment. Neil Dolgin, a co-president of Kalmon Dolgin Affiliates which since 2005 has co-owned The Falchi Building with The Chetrit Group, refused to comment on any aspect of the deal. Read More
The controversial proposal to add a boutique hotel and office space to the Chelsea Market Building was certified Monday by the city Department of City Planning and will now go through the agency’s 7-month ULURP process, it was announced yesterday.
Jamestown Properties, the owners of the Chelsea Market Building, have requested a Zoning Text Amendment and a Zoning Map Amendment to help them build two new additions to the former factory building: a 240,000 square foot office addition and a 90,000 square foot hotel expansion. Read More
Michael Phillips, a robust, healthy-looking fellow with the sun-kissed wavy blond hair of his California youth, wants to add office and hotel space to the Chelsea Market, the historic former biscuit building that stretches an entire city block.
The plan is fairly straightforward: Add 240,000 square feet of Class A office space on top of the 10th Avenue side of Chelsea Market and add 90,000 square feet of hotel space to the Ninth Avenue portion of the city block-long property.
Why the proposal would cause a flurry of opposition from neighboring groups—save for a singular vote of support from the Friends of the High Line—has been a matter of befuddlement and disappointment for Mr. Phillips, the chief operating officer of Jamestown Properties, the development group that since 2004 has envisioned the building’s upward expansion despite opposition from some residents. Read More
Jamestown Properties and Rockwood Capital, along with Crown Acquisitions and Murray Hill Properties, finalized their deal to purchase 530 Fifth Avenue for a reported $390 million, officials said.
The property, which was previously owned by Joseph Moinian and the Chetrit Group, will receive a $20 million renovation to upgrade the building. Read More
