NEW YORK CITY-After various reports unveiled that Eastdil Secured has been tapped to put the massive Worldwide Plaza office complex in Midtown Manhattan back on the sales block, a spokesman for the building’s ownership tells GlobeSt.com that several options are on the table for the 1.9-million-square-foot site.
The source says that the joint venture partners "are looking at all of their options at this particular point in time," which includes a possible sale of the property or selling a stake in the building to a new investor. However, other options "can mean not selling it and continuing to lease it up and continue to keep it as one of the great assets of New York," the spokesperson says.
The property, located at 825 Eighth Ave. between 49th and 50th Streets, is owned by a JV of George Comfort & Sons, DRA Advisors and Feil Organization. It was purchased by the group in 2009 for $590 million, about half of what Macklowe Properties paid for it as part of its $7.2-billion acquisition of the Equity Office Properties portfolio in early 2007.
After the economic downturn, Macklowe relinquished control of the assets in the portfolio to Deutsche Bank. According to Real Capital Analytics, the Comfort JV assumed a portion of the original $470 million debt package assembled by Deutsche as part of the portfolio sale. The debt was subsequently restructured upon acquisition with the principal balance being wrote down by approximate.
The building, which is 70% occupied according to RCA, recently secured a large new tenant. Last June, Nomura Holding America Inc. announced it will relocate its US headquarters from 2 World Financial Center to a 900,000-square-foot space inside Worldwide Plaza. But due to the early nature of sales efforts, Eastdil Secured declined to comment.
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