ESRT’s $386M purchase of 2 buildings in SoHo hits city records

Empire State Realty Trust through the entity Esrt 555-557 Broadway, L.L.C. paid $386 million to Scholastic Inc. through the entity Scholastic 557 Broadway, LLC for the office building (O6) at 549 Broadway in SoHo, Manhattan and office building (O6) at 557 Broadway in SoHo, Manhattan. The expected use is cash flowing.
The deal closed on December 17, 2025 and was recorded on January 15, 2026. The two properties have 355,942 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $1,084 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 Commercial Observer reported on the sale in December. Empire State Realty Trust disclosed the transaction in a press release, saying the properties are approximately 70 percent leased, including Scholastic as a tenant on a 15-year deal, and the retail is fully leased.
The signatory for Scholastic Inc. was Haji Glover . The signatory for Empire State Realty Trust was Christina Chiu . The contract date was December 1, 2025. The sale deed contains a restriction “in perpetuity” that the name Scholastic in terra cotta will never be removed from the building.

Prior sales, articles and revenue

Prior to this transaction, PincusCo has records that the buyer Empire State Realty Trust purchased 13 properties in eight transactions for a total of $226 million and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Scholastic Inc. had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The two properties with a total of 355,942 square feet of built space generated revenue of $26.3 million per year or $74 per square foot. The sale price per square foot was $1,084.

The property

The office building in SoHo has 355,942 square feet of built space according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 99 feet and is 200 feet deep with a total lot size of 19,841 square feet. The lot is irregular. The property is in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $93.3 million.

Violations and lawsuits

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the properties for the past 24 months. In addition, according to city public data, the properties have received $5,550 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

For the tax lot buildings, one out of the two buildings received a initial certificate of occupancy in the last ten years. On these lots, there are two active new building construction projects and major alteration projects with initial costs more than $5 million, totaling zero square feet. The largest, 121192743, is a major alteration project for a 209,749 square-foot B building submitted by Jonathan Feldberg with plans filed February 19, 2015 and permitted February 16, 2017. The second largest, 121192752, is a major alteration project for a 86,751 square-foot B building submitted by Jonathan Feldberg with plans filed February 19, 2015 and permitted March 21, 2017.

The neighborhood

In SoHo, The bulk, or 46 percent of the 9.5 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 14 percent of the space. In sales, SoHo has the 10th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.2 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, SoHo has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 992,539 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 10 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 549 Broadway, PincusCo has identified the owners of six of the eight commercial properties representing 556,134 square feet of the 599,722 square feet. The largest owner is Scholastic, followed by Ikea and then Osprey Studios.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The majority, or 78 percent of the 599,722 square feet of built space are office buildings, with mixed-use buildings next occupying 8 percent of the space.

The buyer

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Empire State Realty Trust owned at least 26 commercial properties with 743 residential units in New York City with 7,983,076 square feet and a city-determined market value of $2.4 billion. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $180 million in debt, borrowed from Morgan Stanley. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 89 percent of the 7,983,076 square feet of built space are office properties, with elevator properties next occupying 9 percent of the space. The bulk, or 98 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 2 percent of the space.

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