Sales  ·  Commercial

Lightstone Hopes to Sell Midtown Moxy Hotel Retail Condo for $64M

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Lightstone Group plans to sell the retail at the base of its under-construction Marriott Moxy Hotel in Midtown for $64 million, Commercial Observer has learned.

The developer is shopping around the 4,004-square-foot retail condominium along with a 27,000-square-foot garage at 485 Seventh Avenue between West 36th and West 37th Streets, according to information from the brokers marketing the property.

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“Our strategy was always to sell the retail in order to maximize the value of our investment,” Lightstone President and Chief Operating Officer Mitchell Hochberg said in a statement via a spokesman. “Due to the increase in value of retail space in the 7th Avenue corridor, we felt this was an opportune time to  execute on that strategy.”

David Schectman, Lipa Lieberman and Abie Kassin of Meridian Investment Sales (the property sales wing of Meridian Capital Group) are shopping around the condo along with Gary Trock of CBRE.

“Located in the heart of Manhattan and surrounded by shops, restaurants and world-renowned tourist attractions, 485 Seventh Avenue is a popular retail destination in a highly trafficked neighborhood of New York City,” Trock said in prepared remarks.

The retail condo includes two distinct spaces, one that is 1,408 square feet and another, which is on the corner of West 36th Street, that is 2,596 square feet, according to information from Meridian. Sandwich shop Pret A Manger occupies the smaller space with a lease that runs through March 2019. The larger space is currently vacant, according to the brokerage. Icon Parking Systems has a long-term lease to manage the 138-space parking garage that expires in 2033.

Lightstone and Marriott International are repositioning the 16-story building into a 618-room Moxy Hotel. The building at 485 Seventh Avenue has been an office and retail structure since the 1980s. Lightstone scored a $330 million financing package in January for the redevelopment of the 1907 property, originally built as a single-room-occupancy building, as CO previously reported.

“The market continues to clamor for world-class retail and Lightstone always intended to focus on building the hotel upstairs in partnership with Marriott, as opposed to [managing] the retail,” Schectman said in an email. “Since the asset has additional upside and there have been numerous unsolicited offers the timing makes sense given their longer-term business plan for the hotel.”