GlobeSt.com EXCLUSIVE: Wells Takes 60 Broad for $213M

NEW YORK CITY-GlobeSt.com has learned that Wells Real Estate Funds has quietly picked up the one-million-sf 60 Broad St. Sources say that the sale price was “just north of $213 million.” The Atlanta-based trust picked the asset up from a partnership forged between Cogswell Realty Group and Lend Lease. CRG also acts as the leasing and management agent. The class A asset is fully leased on a direct basis.

The buy marked the first for Wells in Manhattan and the last for Wells’ REIT Fund I, which produced some $800 million in acquisitions throughout the country in Q4, bringing the fund’s 2003 tally to $2.9 billion. Sources familiar with the REIT’s acquisition strategy speculate that we should expect a disposition phase on Fund I properties to follow a period of asset management, presumably for value-enhancement.

While no one from the REIT is talking, the buy is clearly delivery on a promise made by leaders of the fund in late summer of last year. As GlobeSt.com reported at the time, Wells, in the person of CIO David Steinwedell, stated that, “We can be fast and we can be patient. We can be patient to find the right property and then be quick about making the deal. We don’t have to get in New York this year.”