Clarion Partners LLC, a popular real estate investment managing firm is under contract to buy a vintage office tower near Union Square in Manhattan, New York City for around $225 million, according to Bloomberg.
Sources said to Bloomberg that the company is in private talks of buying 100-104 Fifth Avenue, a 108-year-old, 17 story, 270000 square feet office building. The sellers of the tower are Kaufman Organization, a commercial real estate firm and Invesco Ltd, an investment firm who purchased the building in 2010 for $93.5 million.
The two firms entered into a partnership and purchased the building as the real estate market was just recovering from the 2007-08 asset bubble burst. They had then planned around $9 million worth of improvements and decided to bring in many important tenants into the building like Yelp Inc and Apple as well.
The building is almost full occupied. Only some space on the ninth floor of the building is still available.
About 100-104 Avenue
Located in midtown south of New York City, 100-104 is the quintessential office tower of today's commercial real estate scenario. The building provides office spaces measuring 5405 square feet, 10674 square feet and 16079 square feet. Tenants of the building are affluent firms in the field of technology, advertising, law, finance and various other segments.
According to the building's website:
"Take advantage of the flexibility of options designed to cater to growing companies that may need 5000 SF today and an additional 10,000 SF in the coming months or years. By providing options for various expansions, a small firm can take comfort in knowing they can grow within the building."
In the past few months, commercial space values in Manhattan and central New York has been improving commendably. Numerous companies are looking to set up base in there as employees prefer working in the area.
According to an April report by the Commercial Observer, it was revealed that in the first two months of 2013, leasing activity went up 8.6 percent to more than 2.1 million square feet. However, vacancy rates were still high.
But with more number of financial and tech firms flooding the Manhattan office market, prices are expected to go up and soon, there could be an imbalance between demand and supply of commercial space in the area.
