Takenaka Under Contract to Buy One Broadway for $170M 

Rockwood Capital and Midtown Equities will soon be saying “Sayonara” to their trophy office building at 1 Broadway. 

Japan’s Takenaka Corporation is now under contract to buy the property for $170 million, sources familiar with the transaction told Commercial Observer. 

Newmark’s Marcella Fasulo, Adam Spies, Willis Robbins, Adam Doneger and Josh King negotiated the sale. 

The 230,000-square-foot, 12-story property is fully leased to Fiserv, while Citibank occupies its  retail component. In addition to occupying roughly 92 percent of the building, Fiserv has invested $67 million into its space, with an additional $30 million in the hopper for its remaining build-out, according to an offering memorandum viewed by CO. 

Built in 1884, 1 Broadway once served as the headquarters for J.P. Morgan’s International Mercantile Marine Company. Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the building was gut-renovated in 2020. Rockwood and Midtown Equities purchased it for $140 million in 2018 with a vision to reposition it into creative office space. 

The owners put the building up for sale around this time last year, The Real Deal reported at the time. The same month, Rockwood integrated its operations into Harrison Street Asset Management, although the seller entity is Rockwood, sources said. 

One source described Takenaka, led by Toichi Takenaka, as a collector of unique trophy properties in the U.S. In the 1990s, the firm acquired the Grand Hyatt Kauai in Kauai, Hawaii. In New York, Takenaka owns Hyatt Andaz Fifth Avenue; in 2016, it formed a joint venture partnership with Kennedy Wilson to buy the office tower at 400 California Street in San Francisco; and, in 2017, it purchased the Tilt 49 office building in Seattle, which is fully leased to Amazon. 

Rockwood, Harrison Street and Newmark declined to comment. Takenaka did not return a request for comment. 

Cathy Cunningham can be reached at ccunningham@commercialobserver.com