Walter & Samuels Sells 419 Park Avenue South to Elad Group for $72M
By Mark Hallum August 12, 2024 11:05 am
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Walter & Samuels has offloaded a Midtown South office building slated for conversion to condominiums.
Isaac Tshuva’s El-Ad Group purchased the 191,000-square-foot building at 419 Park Avenue South for $72.1 million, according to the brokers on the deal.
“The opportunity to convert an existing office-to-residential condo in Midtown South is relatively recent,” KSR’s Albert Sultan, who represented both sides of the deal with Marc Sitt, said in a statement. “The purchaser capitalized on the rare opportunity to develop a sizable new condo product in one of the most in demand submarkets in Nomad.”
The timeline for when the property at the southeast corner of East 29th Street will be converted is unclear as the El-Ad Group will need to wait for the leases tied to existing office tenants to expire, according to Sultan. Those leases are set to roll off in the next few years.
And the building has been impacted by two of large coworking companies’ recent struggles.
WeWork, which only recently emerged from Chapter 11, once leased around 67,858 square feet in the property, but left last year at the start of its bankruptcy proceedings. The building also lost occupancy in 2021 when Knotel went down the same route and vacated its 9,000-square-foot space, which it leased in 2017.
Today, the building sits about 60 percent vacant, and it could cost an estimated $600 to $700 per square foot to convert the 10,000-square-foot floor plates, according to Sultan.
Spokespeople for Walter & Samuels and El-Ad did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.
