Boston Properties buys 399 Park Ave. (office building, New York).A key Midtown mid·town n. A central portion of a city, between uptown and downtown. midtown Noun US & Canad the centre of a town property changed hands last week for one billion dollars. 399 Park Ave. -- Citigroup's corporate headquarters--now belongs to Boston Properties Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE: BXP) is a self-managed real estate investment trust (REIT) based in Boston, Massachusetts. Its primary focus is "Class A" office space which it acquires, develops, and manages in the major markets of Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C. . The 1.7 million-SF, fully-leased building will give Citigroup a pretax gain of $830 million. Last year, Boston Properties bought a 66% share of the 59-story Citigroup Center, which is located across the street from 399 Park Ave. The deal is expected to close by the end of this month. Some major REITs that included Equity Office Properties, Brookfield Properties Brookfield Properties Corporation TSX: BPO NYSE: BPO is a Toronto-based North American commercial real estate company. Brookfield Asset Management owns 50% of its outstanding common shares. and Vornado were all in the running for 399 Park Avenue. Several pension funds were also reportedly bidding for the property. But Boston Properties won out, adding another property to their family of five major Midtown office towers. Another project--the Times Square Tower--is being built on 42nd Street. Tenants at 399 Park Ave. include Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LEH), founded in 1850, is a diversified, global financial services firm. It is a participant in investment banking, equity and fixed income sales, research and trading, investment management, private equity, and private banking. , Bingham McCutchen Bingham McCutchen LLP is an international law firm with 950 attorneys in ten US offices and three international offices representing clients in high-stakes litigation, complex financing and financial regulatory matters, government affairs and a wide variety of sophisticated , Arnold & Porter and JP Morgan Chase. The New York Post The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and the oldest to have been published continually as a daily.[3] Since 1976, it has been owned by Australian-born billionaire Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and is one of the 10 reports that Boston properties will "fork over a whopping $650 a foot" for the building. Citigroup controls over 600,000 SF of the building, half of that being subleased to Lehman Brothers. The Post also reports that two years ago, Citigroup and partner Da-ichi Life valued the building at only $225 million in a swap deal that traded Citigroup's half of the Citigroup Tower for Dai-ichi's half of 399 Park Ave. One sales broker isn't too surprised at the how much Boston Properties paid for the building. "Remember that Lehman Brothers bought Morgan Stanley's building for over $600/SF. It's not that rare to see buildings sell for over $600/SF now," said Woody Heller, executive managing director at Insignia/ESG. Last year, Lehman Brothers bought Morgan Stanley's new office tower at Seventh Avenue and 49th Street. |
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