Bar owner pays $6M for mixed-use in Midtown West

Bar owner Michael McNamee through the entity 160 Ownership LLC paid $6 million to Eugene Rooney through the entity Shady Lane Corp. for the six-unit mixed-use building (S5) at 160 West 54th Street in Midtown West, Manhattan.
The deal closed on August 31, 2022 and was recorded on September 13, 2022. The property has 5,702 square feet of built space and 13,375 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 19,080 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,052 and the price per buildable square foot is $314 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 Eugene Rooney was Eugene Rooney. The signatory for Michael McNamee was Michael McNamee. Michael McNamee is the owner of the Midtown bar Mean Fiddler at 266 West 47th Street.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has no record that the buyer Michael McNamee had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Eugene Rooney had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

The property

The 160 West 54th Street parcel has frontage of 19 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 1,908 square feet. The zoning is C6-6 which allows for up to 15 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial and up to 10 times FAR for residential with inclusionary housing. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $6.5 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 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 $5 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Midtown West, the majority, or 73 percent of the 77.7 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 13 percent of the space. In sales, Midtown West has the 5th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $2.1 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Midtown West is the 2nd most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 12 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 15 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of three of the 11 commercial properties representing 1,461,933 square feet of the 2,425,848 square feet. The two identified owners are Park Hotels & Resorts and Edward J. Minskoff Equities.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 88 percent of the 857,455 square feet of built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 12 percent of the space.

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