David Werner pays $101M to Vornado for FiDi office, then ground leases building for $89M

David Werner through the entity Fulton & Pearl Holding LLC paid $101 million to Vornado Realty Trust through the entity 40 Fulton Street LLC for the office building (O4) at 40 Fulton Street in Financial District, Manhattan. Then Werner as landlord, by the signatory Jacob Klein, signed a 99-year ground lease valued at $88.9 million with an entity controlled by Samuel Fisch of Monsey, who is involved in medical care.
The deals closed on December 21, 2022 and were recorded on December 28, 2022. The property has 234,553 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $430 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.)

Prior sales and revenue

The 234,553-square-foot property generated revenue of $10.3 million or $44 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The parcel has frontage of 101 feet and is 123 feet deep with a total lot size of 11,828 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is C6-4 which allows for up to 10 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 $31.9 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received $3,035 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 $1 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In Financial District, The majority, or 74 percent of the 80.1 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with elevator buildings next occupying 15 percent of the space. In sales, Financial District has the 7th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $2 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Financial District is the 3rd most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 9.3 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 12 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 this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of five of the 17 commercial properties representing 785,923 square feet of the 1,114,557 square feet. The largest owner is Goldberg Group, followed by Rockrose Development and then Vornado Realty Trust.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 49 percent of the 1.1 million square feet of built space are elevator buildings, with office buildings next occupying 49 percent of the space.

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