Boston Properties Buys $280M Stake in 200 Fifth Avenue
REIT will provide leasing services and co-manage property with JPMorgan.
Boston Properties is purchasing L&L Holding Company’s 27% stake in 200 Fifth Avenue, a landmark tower in NYC’s Flatiron District, for $280M.
The REIT announced the deal in its earnings report, which Bisnow first reported.
Boston Properties will provide leasing services for the office tower and serve as co-property manager with JPMorgan Asset Management, which owns the majority interest in the century-old building.
The transaction includes $120M in cash and the assumption of a $160M share of the outstanding mortgage on the property, a loan that will mature in November 2028.
The 870K SF, 14-story tower is 93% leased, but at least two of its tenants are in the process of downsizing.
In May, Tiffany & Co. extended its lease to keep its global headquarters at the 1909 landmark building for another 10 years, but the company is downsizing its footprint from 400K SF to 287K SF. The new lease will run until 2036.
Yelp has announced it will let its 70K SF lease in the building expire in 2024.
L&L, in partnership with Lehman Brothers, bought 200 Fifth Ave. for $480M in 2007. In 2011, JPMorgan acquired Lehman’s stake in the building. L&L invested $135M in a capital upgrade of the tower.
Originally known as the Fifth Avenue Building—a landmark clock in front of the building still has the name and interlocked initials F.A.B. are in the elevators—200 Fifth Ave. became part of the International Toy Center, which for many years was the NYC hub for toy manufacturers and distributors in the US.
The building, which also served as the national headquarters for the Boy Scouts of America, became an NYC-designated landmark in 1981.
The most famous building in the Flatiron District—the triangle-shaped Flatiron building at 175 Fifth Ave.—became embroiled in a legal dispute last year when four of the building’s five owners sued to force a sale of the 22-story landmark, which has been largely vacant since the start of the pandemic.
The 120-year-old Flatiron Building is undergoing a renovation that will restore the façade of the building and install a new lobby.