Vanbarton Plans Another Manhattan Office Conversion After $100M Acquisition
The move comes weeks after it was reported it would seek another office conversion in the city for 600 apartment units.
Vanbarton Group is continuing its office conversion activity in Manhattan. This time the real estate investment firm has struck a deal to purchase a site at 1011 First Avenue for more than $100 million and plans to turn it into a residential housing building, as reported by Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the situation.
The property currently serves as the Archdiocese of New York headquarters and stands 20 stories.
The move comes weeks after Vanbarton made another purchase in Manhattan for a downtown office tower, called 77 Water St., according to a separate report from Bloomberg. Under the $95 million deal, the plan is to convert the property into 600 apartment units. The transaction is expected to close before the of the year. There was no timetable provided for the potential closing of the 1011 First Avenue office property.
In New York, Vanbarton has worked on multiple other office-to-residential transformation projects. This includes Pearl House, which was redeveloped into 588 rental luxury units, and 160 Water St.
A recent report from Avison Young found that total office leasing in Manhattan is up 25 percent year-over-year for the third quarter. Also, while the market’s visitation rate in August is outpacing the national average of 60.4 percent, it’s still only 73.4 percent of what Manhattan saw in the same month in 2019.
It’s been a slow recovery for office, and it’s unclear if it will ever return to pre-pandemic levels – even as employers start to impose return-to-office demands. That could explain why developers like Vanbarton are exploring conversion projects with those assets. CBRE said in a report that it expects office conversion projects to double this year compared with 2023.