"With less senior debt available in the market, there now exists a great opportunity for PREI and L&L to acquire assets in New York, as those with captive equity will have an advantage in today's market," says Steven Kohn, president and principal of Cushman & Wakefield Sonnenblick-Goldman, in a prepared release. CWSG arranged the JV, which L&L president David Levinson tells GlobeSt.com is his company's first programmatic deal, "as opposed to individual, stand-alone transactions with our other institutional partners."

L&L's JV partners in previous transactions have included Blackrock Realty, Zurich Global, Lehman Bros., Morgan Stanley, the Carlyle Group and GE Asset Management. With GE in particular, L&L made the $212-million purchase of 600 Third Ave. in September 2004 and the $450-million purchase of 2 Park Ave. in September 2006, selling the 29-story office tower three months later for $750 million to a Morgan Stanley fund.

Levinson tells GlobeSt.com his company intends to bring in additional institutional capital "on a deal-by-deal basis, joining with our Pru JV." The JV expects to invest up to $500 million to acquire prime New York City office properties. "We are looking for larger, higher-quality buildings," Levinson adds. We expect to purchase around $4 billion of buildings with this program. Prices have come down and we expect to make purchases at meaningful discounts from the 2007 peak."