A&E pays $42.6M to SL Green for ground lease on residential elevator in Morningside Heights

A&E Real Estate Holdings through the entity 1080 Amsterdam Avenue, LLC paid $42.6 million to SL Green Realty and Stonehenge NYC through the entity 1080 Amsterdam Lessee LLC for the 96-unit residential elevator building at 1080 Amsterdam Avenue in Morningside Heights, Manhattan.
The deal closed on April 14, 2022 and was recorded on May 6, 2022. The property has 89,365 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $477 per the PincusCo analysis. (The price per square foot analysis is the transaction price divided by square feet as reported in public records and assumes no air rights have been sold.)
The seller bought the property on September 25, 2015, for $29.1 million. The signatory for SL Green Realty and Stonehenge NYC was Andrew S. Levine. The signatory for A&E Real Estate Management was Darryl E. Smith. This is the sale of a ground lease. SL Green announced the sale of 1080 Amsterdam Avenue in December. Ackman-Ziff team including Marc Sznajderman, Andrew Sasson, Chad Sinsheimer, and Justin Bomba advised SL Green in the sale.

Prior sales and revenue

The seller SL Green Realty purchased five properties in five transactions for a total of $366.9 million and sold 16 properties in 13 transactions for a total of $1.6 billion over the same time period. The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Richard Cohen, head officer and Adam Grushko, officer. The business entity is 1080 Amsterdam Lessee Llc. The 89,365-square-foot property generated revenue of $4.8 million or $54 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 1080 Amsterdam Avenue parcel has frontage of 50 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 5,092 square feet. The zoning is R8 which allows for up to 6.02 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $20.4 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property since September of 2020. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received one DOB violation in the last year.

Development

For the tax lot building, it received its initial certificate of occupancy on July 22, 2015. There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $5 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Morningside Heights, the majority, or 60 percent of the 37.8 million square feet of commercial built space are specialty buildings, with residential elevator buildings next occupying 33 percent of the space. In sales, Morningside Heights has had very little sales volume relative to other neighborhoods with $164.9 million in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Morningside Heights has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 439,613 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 1 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 24 of the 34 commercial properties representing 488,976 square feet of the 943,828 square feet. The identified owner is Columbia University. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 53 percent of the 815,180 square feet of built space are residential elevator buildings, with specialty buildings next occupying 25 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that SL Green Realty owned at least 36 commercial properties with 15,624,332 square feet and a city-determined market value of $6.5 billion. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $2.9 billion in debt, with top three lenders as Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Credit Agricole respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 88 percent of the 15,624,332 square feet of built space are office properties, with residential elevator properties next occupying 6 percent of the space. They are all located in Manhattan.

Surrounding

PincusCo has not identified any commercial real estate items of interest within a 400-foot radius of 1080 Amsterdam Avenue that occurred over the past 24 months.

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