Sports Marketing Firm Nabs $2M Condo at 70 West 36th Street
By Jotham Sederstrom December 28, 2011 9:18 am
reprintsStrategic, a sports marketing firm, has purchased a 4,000-square-foot commercial office condo on the tenth floor of 70 West 36th Street for nearly $2 million.
The company’s broker, Jeff Nissani, said the firm had initially been looking to rent a space but shied away from a leasing deal when it realized the kind of capital outlay it would have to invest in building its office installation.
Mr. Nissani said that Strategic envisions constructing high-end offices in order to create a facility that will enhance its brand. The firm specializes in selling ad space at major sports, concert and entertainment venues.
“They didn’t want to put that much into a space they were going to be renting so the conversation shifted to finding an office they could buy,” Mr. Nissani said.
70 West 36th Street is a roughly 190,000-square-foot office building that was converted in recent years into a commercial condominium by the real estate investment firm Time Equities, a company that has managed several such projects.
Time Equities had previously sold the unit that Strategic will be buying to another tenant that occupied the space, Mehdi Khosrowpour, who used the office for his firm Anabash Investment and Management LP. Mr. Nissani said that the purchase price, about $1.9 million, is almost, but not quite, as much as what Anabash paid for the office when it was initially sold by Time Equities.
“Pricing is definitely down in relation to where the building was selling when it just went condo a few years back,” Mr. Nissani said. “But any price you’ve seen in Manhattan in the past will eventually be reached again. If you have the pockets to hold long term in the city you typically will do well given the fact that it’s an island with virtually no buildable land remaining.”
Buying also wound up working for Strategic because the company owned its previous space, a townhouse at 209 East 31st Street, and can take the proceeds from that sale and direct it into the acquisition at 70 West 36th Street tax free.
Daniel Geiger, Staff Writer, is reachable at DGeiger@Observer.com and can also be followed on Twitter at twitter.com/DanGeiger79
