The owners of 11 Madison Avenue have decided not to sell the Midtown South office building, and are concentrating on renewing major tenant Credit Suisse’s lease instead, Crain’s reported. The Sapir Organization and CIM Group had been looking to sell the 2.2-million-square-foot tower for $1.5 billion, which could have been one of the city’s largest office sales to date.
Though Sapir and CIM had apparently generated lucrative offers for the property, between East 24th and East 25th streets, the owners said they would generate higher profits by renewing a lease with Credit Suisse, which occupies more than three-quarters of the building. The lease expires in 2017.
Darcy Stacom of CBRE, who had been marketing the property, told Crain’s that the potential vacancy could affect the sale price by hundreds of millions of dollars. “Through the course of the bid we showed that it was a very likely scenario for Credit Suisse to renew,” Stacom told Crain’s. “Ownership started to realize that they didn’t want to leave that money on the table.”
The sale was expected to catapult the building into a small group of Manhattan office properties that have sold for more than $1 billion.
Eleven Madison is the second major office property to be yanked from the market in recent months. In August, George Comfort & Sons offered Worldwide Plaza for sale, and it was expected to fetch $1.2 billion, but it is no longer on the market. [Crain’s] —Leigh Kamping-Carder