Safehold pays $46.5M for fee under EQR’s 111-unit Chelsea rental

Safehold, Inc.  the public company that focuses on owning ground-leased fee positions, paid $46.5 million for the ground under Equity Residential’s 111-unit Chelsea apartment building Ten23, at 500 West 23rd Street in Chelsea. The sellers were members and trusts of the family of Richard Brick, who died in 2014. His father, Seymour Brick, acquired gas stations and the lot on the corner of 10th Avenue and 23rd Street was at one point leased to gas stations.

The Brick family owned the parcel since at least the 1970s. Richard Brick through the entity Silo Cinema LLC as landlord signed a 99-year lease, effective November 1, 2005, that ran to October 31, 2104 with tenant Shaya Boymelgreen, the developer. The owner entity remains Silo Cinema because the owner transfer was not a deed, but an entity level sale.

Boymelgreen assigned the ground lease to Sam Zell’s Equity Residential in December 2009 for $11.25 million, according to city records.

— Adam Pincus