CapitaLand pays $38M to Morgan Stanley’s Eaton Vance for fee below Midtown West hotel

CapitaLand through the entity Aspinden Land LLC paid $38 million to Eaton Vance Management through the entity Bel Midtown LLC for the fee under the hotel building (H3) at 15 West 45th Street in Midtown West, Manhattan. The hotel is currently branded as Citadines Connect Fifth Avenue New York. CapitaLand through Ascott Limited already controlled the property through a 99-year ground lease.
The property has a complex ownership chain with multiple partners and ground lease interests.
The parties did not respond to a request for comment.
In 2005 Rhode Island-based Magna Hospitality bought the hotel for $36.5 million. In 2011, Magna sold an interest of some amount to the Walnut Hill Group, valuing the asset at $43.9 million, but Magna continued to sign as the owner in mortgage documents. In 2014, Magna created a 99-year ground lease structure with a fee and a ground tenant, and sold the fee for $30.4 million to Lexington Realty Advisors (LEX 45TH STREET L.P.). Magna remained as ground tenant ZE-45 GROUND TENANT LLC. Lexington Realty Advisors sold the fee in 2016 to Eaton Vance Management for $37.5 million, and Magna remained as ground tenant.
In May 2017, Magna sold the leasehold to Ascott Limited, a hotel ownership division of CapitaLand, for $37.76 million.

The fee position deal closed on December 28, 2022 and was recorded on January 18, 2023. The property has 44,836 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $846 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 Eaton Vance Management was Gary LeFave. The signatory for CapitaLand was Eaton Zhou. CapitaLand is the holding company for Ascott Limited. Eaton Vance Management is part of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, the asset management division of Morgan Stanley.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has no record that the buyer CapitaLand had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Eaton Vance Management had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Lily Sanders, head officer and Elizabeth Ardiles, site manager. The business entities are Real Hospitality Group and Aspinden Trs Llc.

The property

The 15 West 45th Street parcel has frontage of 33 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 3,377 square feet. The zoning is C6-4.5 which allows for up to 12 times floor area ratio (FAR) for commercial The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $13.3 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 and $2,375 in OATH penalties 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 75 percent of the 76 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 5th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $2.3 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Midtown West is the 2nd most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 13.4 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 18 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other hotel buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of eight of the 96 commercial properties representing 362,807 square feet of the 2,590,179 square feet. The largest owner is Sanjay Hirawat, followed by Oleg Klempner and then OMI Jewelry.
there are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 75 percent of the 1.3 million square feet of built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 13 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that CapitaLand owned at least one commercial property in New York City with 81,000 square feet and a city-determined market value of $31.6 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio consists of at least a single hotel property. It is located in Manhattan.

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