NEW YORK CITY—Following a year in which it didn't even place in the top 10 locally, the Blackstone Group dominated New York commercial real estate investment during 2015, according to Real Capital Analytics data. The world's largest private real estate investor became the biggest buyer in its own backyard last year, accounting for 21% of Manhattan commercial property transactions by dollar volume.

Bloomberg Business reported Friday that Blackstone, headquartered at 345 Park Ave., bought $9.6 billion of commercial properties locally last year and sold $4.2 billion, mainly in Manhattan. Although its highest-profile acquisition was the 11,000-unit Peter Cooper Village/Stuyvesant Town apartment complex in Midtown South, which it acquired from CWCapital Asset Management for $5.3 billion in partnership with Ivanhoé Cambridge, Blackstone's dealmaking last year ran the gamut of office, hotel and retail assets as well as multifamily.

The Stuy-Town complex, which traded to the Blackstone/Ivanhoé partnership more than five and a half years after its previous owners defaulted on a $3-billion mortgage, was not the only apartment property Blackstone acquired in Manhattan last year. The asset management giant also partnered with Fairstead Capital to buy a 24-building portfolio of mid-sized residential assets located mainly in Chelsea and on the Upper East Side. At $690 million, it was among the largest multifamily deals the borough had seen in recent years until the Stuy-Town mega-sale was arranged.