This Week's N.Y. Deal Sheet: Madison Realty Capital Lends $720M On Pfizer HQ Conversion
The largest planned office-to-resi conversion in the country just got one step closer.
Madison Realty Capital provided Metro Loft Developers and David Werner Real Estate Investments, the joint venture turning Pfizer’s former New York City headquarters into 1,602 apartments, a $720M loan.
“By structuring flexible financing for the largest office-to-residential conversion in New York City's history, we are enabling a new benchmark for luxury rental housing in Midtown Manhattan,” Josh Zegen, managing principal and co-founder of Madison Realty Capital, said in a statement.
Construction, which involves converting two adjacent, connected office buildings at 219 and 235 E. 42nd St., is already underway and is expected to wrap up in 2027. Around a quarter of the units will be reserved as affordable housing.
“We’re thrilled to reach this major milestone in bringing our vision for this transformative development to life,” Metro Loft founder and CEO Nathan Berman said in a statement.
Max Herzog, Marko Kazanjian, Andrew Cohen and Max Hulsh at IPA Capital Markets, a division of Marcus & Millichap, secured the financing with Madison Realty Capital. A Kriss & Feuerstein team led by Jerry Feuerstein represented the lender, while a Fried Frank team led by Mike Werner represented the borrower.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
Goose Property Management scored an $80M loan from Affinius Capital to refinance 570 Fulton St., a 163-unit, 23-story multifamily development in Downtown Brooklyn. The loan will be used to complete construction on the property — which will offer a mix of studios, one- and two-bedroom units — and to lease the luxury building to stabilization. Henry Bodek of Galaxy Capital arranged the financing.
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Flatiron Real Estate Advisors refinanced a 12-property portfolio spanning 92 apartments in Williamsburg for $34.8M with the Bank of Montreal, Commercial Observer reported. The financing retires a previous loan from Oritani Bank, which Valley National Bank acquired in 2019. The units covered by the financing are a mix of free-market and rent-controlled units that Flatiron has owned since 2005. An Arrow Real Estate Advisors team of Morris Betesh, Omar Ferreira and Jacob Petrovic arranged the debt.
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Two Trees Management and Madison Capital notched a $27.5M refinancing of five properties spanning 136K SF in Gowanus, PincusCo reported. The new debt comes from M&T Bank through the entity Manufactures And Traders Trust Co. It refinanced a mortgage of the same amount with Blackstone Group, which had acquired it when it bought a stake in Signature Bank’s CRE loan portfolio. The loan is tied to the retail buildings at 18 Second Ave. and 73 12th St. and an industrial building at 1 11th St.
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Popular Bank has agreed to provide $35.4M in construction financing to Abraham Lokshin for a 29-unit residential project at 1009 Second Ave. in Midtown East, PincusCo reported. Lokshin acquired the property in 2014 for $14.3M and filed plans for the project in 2019 but has yet to receive permits.
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L+M Development nabbed a $36.9M mortgage from Lument for its 91-unit rental project at 235 Central Park N. in Harlem, PincusCo reported. The financing pays off the building's $32M mortgage with Goldman Sachs. L+M has owned the 86K SF property since 2016, when it paid $44M to acquire it.
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The Feil Organization has signed a $40M refinancing deal with Principal Life Insurance covering a 178-unit rental building in Carnegie Hill, PincusCo reported. The debt replaces a prior $40M loan on the 160 E. 84th St. building from Capital One and Fannie Mae.
TOP LEASES
Trading firm Optiver is opening a 23K SF office at BXP’s 360 Park Avenue S., taking the entire 12th floor of the 450K SF Midtown South office tower. The deal is Optiver’s first long-term NYC lease and will be in a prebuilt suite in the 20-story building. Digital media company Ziff Davis and wealth management firm Iconiq Capital are also tenants in the building, which was 23% occupied at the end of 2024. A JLL team led by Matt Felice represented Optiver, and a CBRE team led by Peter Turchin represented BXP.
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Silverstein Properties inked a 49K SF lease at 1177 Sixth Ave. with Starr Insurance. Starr is taking over the seventh and eighth floors of the 47-story, 1M SF tower as an expansion of its regional New York office. Starr’s new neighbors include law firm Kramer Levin and private equity firm Mill Point Capital. Cushman & Wakefield’s John Picco and Alex Lachmund repped Starr, while Silverstein was repped in-house by Harlan Strader as well as C&W’s Lou D’Avanzo, Anthony LoPresti, Peter Kerans and Caroline Collins.
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A new private health club from East Gate and SC Holdings has signed a 52K SF lease at 43 Clark St. in Brooklyn Heights, Commercial Observer reported. The 29-year lease covers the lower levels, ground floor and second floor of the building known as the St. George Tower, which was once home to the St. George Hotel. The 30-story property once had 2,632 hotel rooms when it was the city’s largest hotel, but it was converted into a luxury residential co-op building in 1984. Its owners, the St. George Tower co-op and Grill Owners Corp., envision a high-end health, wellness and sports facility that will serve as an amenity for the building’s 275 residential units. Helmsley Spear’s Michael Dubin plus DL Partners’ Bruce Lederman and Grace Betancourt repped the co-op board in the deal.
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CBRE-owned flexible office provider Industrious signed a 25K SF deal at Trinity Church’s 107 Greenwich St., taking the entire 13th and 14th floors of the building as it expands in Lower Manhattan. Other tenants in the 26-story building, which was completed in 2022 and has 176K SF of office space, include luxury jeweler David Yurman and e-commerce platform Swap Commerce. A JLL team led by John Wheeler, Andrew Coe and Margaux Kelleher repped building ownership, Trinity Church NYC, in the deal. C&W’s Justin Halpern, Ed Wartels and Benjamin Bouganim repped Industrious.
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Swedish candy company BonBon has signed an 11K SF lease in Long Island City, Commercial Observer reported. The deal gives the retailer 9K SF of industrial space and a little over 2K SF of office space, with asking rents at $30 per SF. BonBon plans to use the space at 47-39 35th St. to support its four NYC retail stores on the Lower East Side, Upper East Side, Red Hook and Williamsburg. The landlord is Jiwon International Corp., which was repped by Symmetry CRG Commercial Realty Group’s Michael Maunsell. BonBon was repped by BH Realty’s Aryeh Vilinsky and Colliers’ Joshua Kleinberg and Daniel Mundle.
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Borough Developers signed a 99-year ground lease with John Mullins & Sons for a 19K SF corner assemblage in Fort Greene, Commercial Observer reported. Borough Developers is paying $1.4M a year, a total of $139M, for 673-695 Fulton St. The property sits across the street from the Brooklyn Academy of Music and is currently occupied by a nonprofit and a health club, but Borough Developers is interested in building an 81K SF rental development with ground-floor retail. A Meridian Capital Group investment sales group of Thomas Donovan, Tommy Lin and Eugene Kim arranged the ground lease.
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Pickleball brand CityPickle signed a 60K SF lease to operate 11 pickleball courts plus public green spaces, community programming and food courts at Anchorage Plaza under the Brooklyn Bridge, Commercial Observer reported. NYC’s Department of Parks & Recreation selected CityPickle through a request for proposals issued last year, giving CityPickle a three-year license agreement that starts once permitting and construction are completed next spring.
TOP SALES
Conservative nonprofit The Rosenkranz Foundation has acquired two retail condo units from Taconic Partners at the Essex Crossing development at 202 Broome St., Crain’s New York Business reported. The nonprofit paid $15M for the 35K SF Market Line unit, formerly a food hall, and the 8K SF Broome Street Garden unit. They span the subcellar, cellar and ground-floor levels and part of the 15-story development’s second floor. The foundation’s plans for the property are unclear.
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Charney Cos. and Tavros Capital bought 175 Third St. in Gowanus for $164M, Crain’s reported. RFR Realty paid $115M for the site in 2018 before clearing the property, getting permits for excavation and foundations, helping an environmental cleanup program on the land and lining the property up to obtain tax incentives. The site’s new owners are planning a 1,000-unit rental project, the neighborhood’s largest building, as part of their Gowanus Wharf campus. The sale follows an October default by RFR on an $80M mortgage tied to the site, which a group of investors led by Madison Realty Capital bought last year and then began foreclosure proceedings, The Real Deal reported. The sale to Charney and Tavros was negotiated by Andrew Sasson of Ackman-Ziff, while a JLL team led by Christopher Peck and Peter Rotchford arranged a $110M loan from Silver Point Capital and a $35M loan from the Brodsky Organization and Tikehau Capital.
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Bridge Investment Group has acquired a Garment District office property for $41.8M, PincusCo reported. The 20K SF property, 1367-1369 Broadway, was sold by the Goldberg Group at a foreclosure auction.
