Blackstone Group has found another commercial property to add to its $119B portfolio, and it is a sizable catch: the 1,327-unit Parker Towers in the New York borough of Queens. The mega-investor will pay about $500M for the property to seller Jack Parker Corp.
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The actual purchaser of the apartments is Blackstone Property Partners, the company’s open-ended vehicle, Bloomberg reports. The vehicle focuses on stabilized properties in major cities.
Parker Towers, which is in Queens' Forest Hills neighborhood, is composed of three 20-story residential towers. Amenities include a 24-hour doorman, a gym, a private club, a dog runner and indoor parking.
The deal reflects investor appetite for properties that offer less-expensive alternatives in high-priced apartment markets like New York. That is not to say that Parker Towers is low priced: according to StreetEasy, rents at the property average $2,313/month.
That is roughly average for the borough. According to MNS, apartments average about $2,289/month in Queens, though some neighborhoods, such as Long Island City, are more expensive. Average apartment rents are $4,038/month in Manhattan and $2,855/month in Brooklyn, reports MNS.
For Blackstone, the deal is the latest in its string of enormous apartment purchases in New York. About three years ago, the investor acquired Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, the city's largest multifamily community, for $5.3B. In 2016, it paid $620M for the 894-unit Kips Bay Court complex.
Jack Parker Corp. has been an active seller of NYC properties lately. Just this year, it agreed to sell the Biltmore apartment building and the Parker New York Hotel, both in Manhattan.
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