Rudin is parting ways with one of its office buildings in the Financial District, an extremely rare sale for the prominent, family-run real estate firm.
The company is selling 80 Pine St. to Bushburg, a Brooklyn-focused developer based in Penn Plaza, for $160 million, according to sources familiar with the transaction.
Eastdil Secured’s Gary Phillips and Will Silverman brokered the deal. They and Rudin declined to comment on it, and Bushburg did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Rudin has owned the 40-story, 1.2 million-square-foot property since it was developed in 1960 and began marketing it in October, reportedly hoping for a sales price of around $200 million. The building is about half-empty and suffered a major blow in 2021, when insurance giant AIG left 800,000 square feet amid its move to Midtown, according to The Real Deal, which first reported the news of the deal. Estimated asking rents in the building range from $47 to $57 per square foot, according to the commercial real estate database CoStar.
The Lower Manhattan office district has been struggling more than Midtown and Midtown South since the pandemic, facing higher availability rates, less leasing activity and lower asking rents, according to data from Colliers. The area already went through one wave of office-to-residential conversions starting in the 1990s and has been seen as ripe for another in the wake of Covid. This could be what Bushburg is planning for 80 Pine St., especially now that the state has agreed to include an incentive program for office-to-residential conversions in its recently passed budget.
Bushburg was founded by CEO Joseph Hoffman and made its first purchase in 2000: a Bushwick factory that the firm turned into a mini mall. The firm has taken on several other Brooklyn projects since then and has developments in Queens, Jersey City and Miami as well, but this appears to be its first purchase in Manhattan.
Downtown office properties with planned residential conversions include 222 Broadway, 25 Water St. and 55 Broad St. GFP Real Estate is behind the 222 Broadway project; GFP and Metro Loft Management are behind the 25 Water St. plan; and Metro Loft and Silverstein Properties are behind 55 Broad St.
C. J. Hughes contributed reporting.
Eddie Small , 2024-04-25 18:44:34
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