[ad_1]
Prada seems to have tied up some loose ends in Midtown.
The Italian fashion giant has bought a storefront space on West 56th Street to complement the blockbuster $822 million pickup it completed on Fifth Avenue at the end of last year.
The new site, which is tucked inside the Crown Building, the hotel-and-condo redevelopment project from Aman Resorts, sold for $12.6 million, according to a deed that appeared in the city register Thursday.
There’s some ambiguity about the seller of the property, which sits in a glass-walled wing of the Crown. On the deed the seller is listed as the developer Brookfield, which controls the bulk of the retail square footage at the site after acquiring it from General Growth Properties in 2018 as part of a $9 billion merger.
But other sources close to the deal say the seller of the property, at an intersection considered the highest-profile shopping strip in New York, was in fact the developer Wharton Properties, a former Crown investor that also happens to be the firm that sold Prada the other two properties. In fact, Prada’s new berth is directly behind 720 Fifth Ave., one of the two buildings involved in the 2023 deals.
The complicated Venn diagram of ownership of the Crown Building, which also counts the firm Shvo has an investor, may be contributing to the confusion.
An email sent to Prada Group’s press office was not returned, and both Brookfield and Jeff Sutton, Wharton’s founder, had no comment.
Prada provided a notable lift to the fortunes and spirits of the beleaguered commercial real estate sector when it grabbed 720 Fifth for $397 million and next-door 724 Fifth for $425 million from Wharton in December.
Seemingly not content to just be a tenant at 724 Fifth, where it has leased a berth for years, Prada made a move to buy its home outright, while also picking up an adjacent property long occupied by the clothing chain Abercrombie & Fitch.
Prada’s hefty investment also seems to epitomize a broader trend of luxury retailers deciding that a better way to lock in costs in an inflationary era is to own properties as opposed to renting them, though Prada had apparently considered buying a permanent home for years.
Still, a few weeks after Prada’s deals closed, Gucci’s parent, Kering, dropped a staggering $963 million for the retail portion of 715-717 Fifth, across the street.
The Crown Building, whose official address is 730 Fifth Ave., is a 1921 office building with a pyramidal top made over in the past few years as an 83-room hotel layered beneath a 26-unit condo. Though Aman and its development partners contained much of the redevelopment inside the prewar structure’s walls, they also added a wing, which faces West 56th and offers the entrance to the condo section.
Condo sales have been brisk at Aman’s condo though the pandemic, though secrecy shrouds most of the buyers because they completed their purchases using opaque shell companies. The developer sold the last sponsor unit in March. The condo is now in resales mode, with sellers apparently hoping for big returns.
An 18th-floor three-bedroom with a private outdoor pool that went for $35 million in 2022 hit the market March 22 at an asking price of $40 million. And on Thursday, a second owner also took a stab at a flip, listing a 19th-floor three-bedroom that cost $22 million for $28 million, a 27% markup.
Aman Resorts, whose CEO is Vlad Doronin, hauled in $893 million from sponsor sales at the Billionaires Row property, according to its offering plan.
[ad_2]
C. J. Hughes , 2024-04-25 19:42:26
Source link