Tri-Star Buys SoHo Retail Properties From Vornado for $23.5M
By Mark Hallum December 19, 2022 5:46 pm
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Vornado Realty Trust has sold two SoHo retail buildings for $23.5 million to a company tied to Paul Xuereb, a vice president with Tri-Star Equities.
The buildings at 484-486 Broadway collectively span about 21,000 square feet and have retail space leased out to Madewell and J.Crew. The buildings also have 3,200 square feet of office space which can be converted to apartments, according to Crain’s New York Business, which first reported the sale.
Nicholas Judson of Judson CRE represented Xuereb, while Avison Young’s James Nelson, Brent Glodowski and Kate Kabili represented Vornado in the deal.
“Given the intricacies of the tenant mix and loft law status of the units, this was a relatively straightforward sale, and both sides worked quickly to consummate the sale in this challenging sales environment, Glodowski said in a statement.”
All the office space at the site sits empty, but Judson said there are no plans to convert the office space to residential, as restaurants and other attractions in the immediate vicinity, such as the new Eataly location opening at Brookfield Properties’ 200 Lafayette Street, will bring additional foot traffic.
“It’s a long-term play just as it was for Vornado,” Judson told Commercial Observer.
Vornado bought the buildings in 2007 for $14 million, according to property records, turning a profit compared to the group of SoHo buildings it sold in 2021 at a nearly $7 million loss.
But the firm has been paddling upstream as of late, putting its plans to build office towers around Penn District on pause as rising interest rates and inflation make construction difficult as it waits out a potential downturn.
Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.
