Amazon pays RFR $456M for Midtown West office, retail

Amazon paid a total of $456 million to RFR Holding for the commercial condominium office and retail building at 522 Fifth Avenue in a transfer tied to three separate transactions. The Commercial Observer reported the total price at $456 million.

As of publication, property records showed Amazon had paid $340 million for the office portion of the building to RFR Holding. In a related transaction, RFR Holding paid Deka Immobilien — which had partnered with Ashkenazy Acquisition to buy the retail in 2014 for $165 million — consideration of $85 million. And in a third transaction, now for $0, RFR assigned the retail property to Amazon.

In the first transaction, Amazon through the entity Amazon.Com Services LLC paid $340 million to RFR Holding through the entity 522 Fifth Office LLC for the office condos at 522 5th Avenue in Midtown West, Manhattan. The expected use is owner-occupied.
The deal closed on May 1, 2025 and was recorded on May 9, 2025. The nine properties have 371,406 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $915 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 signatory for RFR Holding was Richard Froom . The signatory for Amazon was Shannon Loew . The contract date was April 17, 2025.

In the second transaction, RFR Holding through the entity 522 Fifth Retail LLC paid $85 million to Deka Immobilien and Ashkenazy Acquisition through the entity 522 Fifth Avenue Retail, L.P. for the retail condo at 522 Fifth Avenue in Midtown West, Manhattan.
The deal closed on May 1, 2025 and was recorded on May 9, 2025. The property has 24,786 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $3,429 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.)
Deka and Ashkenazy bought the property on September 30, 2014, for $165 million. The signatory for Deka Immobilien was Enda Bracken . The signatory for RFR Holding  was Richard Froom . The contract date was November 28, 2025.

In the third transaction, RFR assigned the retail to Amazon for $0.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has no record that the buyer Amazon had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller RFR Holding purchased two properties in two transactions for a total of $53.6 million and sold four properties in four transactions for a total of $989.8 million over the same time period.

Violations and lawsuits

The office properties were involved in one lawsuit over the past two years. The suit was a $224 million commercial foreclosure concerning a loan filed on June 4, 2024, by Column Financial, Series 2020-522F, and KeyBank against RFR Holding, Aby Rosen, and Michael Fuchs. In addition, according to city public data, the properties have not received any significant violations in the last year.

Development

There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $1 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Midtown West, The majority, or 75 percent of the 75.9 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 14 percent of the space. In sales, Midtown West has the 2nd highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $2.7 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Midtown West is the most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 35.1 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 46 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other office buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On the tax block of 522 Fifth Avenue, PincusCo has identified the owners of four of the 10 commercial properties representing 455,504 square feet of the 1,234,508 square feet. The largest owner is Apf Properties, followed by Mcr and then Rabina Properties.
On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 523,188 square feet. It is a 98-unit, 523,188 square-foot business (B) building submitted by Rabina and filed by Ian Klein with plans filed January 4, 2021 and permitted September 1, 2022.

The majority, or 77 percent of the 1.2 million square feet of built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 22 percent of the space.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that RFR Holding owned at least 19 commercial properties in New York City with 3,405,194 square feet and a city-determined market value of $1.5 billion. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 86 percent of the 3,405,194 square feet of built space are office properties, with hotel properties next occupying 10 percent of the space. The bulk, or 97 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 3 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Amazon owned at least one commercial property in New York City with 693,256 square feet and a city-determined market value of $81.5 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio consists of at least a single office property. It is located in Manhattan.

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