Titan Golden pays $26.6M for 645 Madison ground lease, down from $79M in 2015

Titan Golden Capital through the entity Titan Golden Property Investor LLC paid $26.6 million to East West Bank through the entity Ewb-II, LLC for the ground lease that controls the office building (O4) at 645 Madison Avenue in Upper East Side, Manhattan.

East West Bank acquired the leasehold from Nightingale Properties and Friedland Properties in September 2021, in an assignment of lease in lieu of foreclosure. The joint venture purchased the leasehold in 2015 for $79 million. Titan Golden Capital has an office in Irvine, California, and is hiring in New York City. East West Bank has branches in China, and Titan Capital has ties with China as well, including, for example, in a job posting a requirement that a research analyst in New York be fluent in English and Mandarin.

The deal closed on November 8, 2021 and was recorded on November 30, 2021.
The property has 164,615 square feet of built space according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $161 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 East West Bank was Lisa L. Kim. The signatory for Titan Golden Capital was Chi-Fai Ben Wong.
The fee interest in the property is owned by the entity BLR Madison LLC which has shareholders Richard Grossman, Loomis Grossman, Richard Baker and Lauren Richman.

Within a 400-foot radius of 645 Madison Avenue, PincusCo identified 13 commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those 13 items, one was for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. It was a permit issued on December 11, 2019 for the $4.8 million renovation of 11,272-square-foot A-2 building with no residential units at 36 East 61st Street.
Of those 13 items, seven were sales above $5 million totaling $149.5 million. The most recent of the seven was Orit Alster Ben Zvi and Gil-Haim Agmon which bought one condo unit in the 4,628-square-foot, 43-unit mixed-use building (RD) on 520 Park Avenue for $36.0 million from Zeckendorf Development on October 20, 2021.
Of those 13 items, five were loans above $5 million totaling $858 million. The most recent of the five was Alessandro Bonecchi which borrowed $20.0 million from Principal Life Insurance Company secured by the 7,540-square-foot, nine-unit rental (C7) on 36 East 60th Street and two other properties on March 19, 2021.

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