Black Spruce, Orbach Affordable pay $387.5M to Solow in Murray Hill, part of $1.8B deal

Black Spruce Management and Orbach Affordable Housing Solutions through the entity 685 1st Ave LLC paid $387.5 million to Solow Realty & Development through the entity 685 First Realty Company, LLC for the property at 685 First Avenue in Murray Hill, Manhattan.
This sale is part of a $1.8 billion deal between Solow led by Stefan Soloviev and Black Spruce and Orbach. The property is composed of a 408-unit, 416,337-square-foot rental block on floors 1 to 27, a 9,516 square foot retail condo on the ground floor and a 24,105-square-foot garage condo underground. The building also has 148 residential for-sale condo units.
The deal closed on September 23, 2022 and was recorded on September 29, 2022.
The acquisition was financed with a senior loan broken into two liens from JPMorgan Chase totaling $290.6 million.
The signatory for Solow Realty & Development was Steve Weymouth. The signatory for Black Spruce Management and Orbach Affordable Housing Solutions was Joshua Gotlib.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has records that the buyer Black Spruce Management purchased 66 properties in 49 transactions for a total of $1.3 billion and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Solow Realty & Development had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the properties since September of 2020. 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 $5 million on this tax lot.

The block

On the tax block, there was one new building construction project filed totaling 730,339 square feet. It is a 556-unit, 730,339-square-foot R-2 building developed by Anthony Calicchio with plans filed August 25, 2015 and permitted February 17, 2016.

The majority, or 100 percent of the 796,048 square feet of built space are elevator buildings.

The seller

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Solow Realty & Development owned at least seven commercial properties in New York City with 3,333,923 square feet and a city-determined market value of $1.6 billion. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $505.9 million in debt, borrowed from Walker & Dunlop. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 52 percent of the 3,333,923 square feet of built space are office properties, with elevator properties next occupying 48 percent of the space. They are all located in Manhattan.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Black Spruce Management owned at least 142 commercial properties in New York City with 3,431,440 square feet and a city-determined market value of $713.4 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $434.7 million in debt, with top three lenders as Signature Bank, Amerant Bank, and New York Community Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 64 percent of the 3,431,440 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with walkup properties next occupying 36 percent of the space. The bulk, or 81 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Queens next at 15 percent of the space.

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