292 Madison note is sold
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The first mortgage note on 292 Madison Ave. has been sold by Royal Bank of Canada to an entity controlled by JEMB for about $30 million.
The $60 million face value mortgage was taken out by Haim Revah and Jacob Abikzer‘s Metropolitan Realty Partners who control the building through a ground lease. The lease for the 210,000 square-foot building on the southeast corner of E. 41st Street ends in 2077 but according to public documents, the leaseholder has purchase options beginning in 2020.
SL Green Realty Corp. owns the ground. The advertising agency Young & Rubicam is technically the major tenant but is subleasing out most of its space.
Joseph Jerome, president of JEMB, owns the Herald Center and 75 Broad Street among other properties, but he and his father-in-law Morris Baily, have not been players in recent years.
The purchase will either provide them with an income stream from the mortgage payments or could be the first step toward a future foreclosure on the building which is short on its reserve fund but so far, sources say, current on the loan.
As we first reported in April, RBC had hired Eastdil Secured to sell the note. A separate note of $210 million taken by the same parties on the Lipstick Building is also in the process of being marketed by Eastdil. RBC began foreclosure proceedings on that note in June.
In an e-mail, Douglas Harmon of Eastdil would only confirm the sale of the 292 Madison note to JEMB. Otherwise, the parties either did not return calls or had no comment.
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After enduring four years of agonizingly empty shop windows, the Hearst Tower may have agreed to its first retail tenant.
Sources say Sur La Table has been working with Hearst over the last year on a lease for 5,800 square feet along the 57th Street side of its Eighth Avenue headquarters.
But a major snag is that signage must be approved by the city’s Landmarks Commission — and so far the submissions designed by tower architect Norman Foster + Partners have not been up to commission standards. The original Joseph Urban-designed base façade is landmarked and had to be “saved” when the new, modern diamond-patterned tower was constructed.
Sur La Table’s retail broker, Steve Bartha, declined comment as did a Hearst spokesman and its brokerage team from CB Richard Ellis: Richard Hodos, David LaPierre and Stephen Sjurset.
Hearst had hoped to lure names like Gucci and Prada to its retail spaces but the secondary office and residential area doesn’t have the world-wide luster of Fifth Avenue, or the coinage in local’s pockets needed to appeal to such high class shops.
A broker not associated with the deal who asked to remain anonymous also noted, “Now that TJ Maxx signed a lease across the street [at 250 W. 57th St.] it’s harder and harder to get that luxury brand name [to the area].”
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Think Tank Digital, the marketing company that boosted Lady Ga Ga‘s online sites and videos to over one billion views and five million Twitter followers, is moving to better space in the Fashion District. The company leased 1,700 square feet at 250 W. 39th St. which had an asking rent of $39 a foot.
Christopher Okada of Okada & Company repre sented the tenant in the transaction while Catherine O’Toole of Tarter Stats O’Toole represented the building owners.
According to Okada, company founders Tynicka Battle and Amina Elshahawi approved the space and made all the decisions. They tried to get the Lady to go gaga over the space on July 5, her one day off the Monster Ball tour in the tri-state area, but the logistics didn’t work out.
The group will move from 1030 Sixth Ave.