NEW YORK CITY-Kicking off 2013 with perhaps one more ding to the publishing industry, the New York Observer has reportedly sold its Midtown West office building. As reported Monday on Bloomberg, and again Wednesday in the New York Post, Observer owner Jared Kushner procured a purchase price of $95 million for his property, 321 W. 44th St.
The buyers of the 228,268-square-foot structure were East End Capital and Green Oak Real Estate. They were represented by Darcy Stacom, vice chairman at CBRE, according to the Post. A CBRE spokesman didn't have information on the deal. East End was formed by Jonathon Yormak and David Peretz, formerly of Broadway Partners, along with real estate investor Richard Ruben.
Kushner, who initially secured the 1929 building at the top of the 2007 market for $85 million, reportedly plans to buy another property for the paper and its related businesses, which include the Commercial Observer and the Mortage Observer, the Post reports. However, according to Bloomberg, the New York Observer is under a five-year lease, with an option to bow out after one year.
Kushner—a real estate scion and the president and chief executive officer of Kushner Cos.—allegedly is weighing options that include buying a new building and housing the publication there, or moving it into a property his family already owns. Back in 2006 he purchased the New York Observer, a weekly newspaper that focuses on the city's political, media and real estate elite. A publicist representing Kushner declined comment.
East End Capital owns a minority stake in the building, Bloomberg reports. GreenOak was founded in 2010 by Sonny Kalsi, Fred Schmidt and John Carrafiell, who ran Wall Street's largest real estate investing group at Morgan Stanley until the market crashed. The two firms have come together to buy real estate before. They previously acquired 256 W. 38th St., a 15-floor building in Manhattan's garment district, for approximately $30 million, and 21-27 Mercer St. in the SoHo area.
Last week, the two firms teamed with Aby Rosen's RFR to pick up the Young & Rubicam building at 285 Madison Ave. for $189.25 million. That property is reportedly marketed by Stacom too.
Going forward, GreenOak says most of its deals will be office buildings, then retail properties and hotels, according to Bloomberg. In the US, it will focus on major markets such as New York, Boston and Los Angeles.
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
