UPDATED, 11:21 a.m., June 6: Gotham Realty is quietly hunting for a buyer for its Downtown office building at 30 Broad Street — and is hoping to get up to $400 a foot, or $168 million, for the 420,000-square-foot tower, a source familiar with the search told The Real Deal.
Boston-based real estate investment firm Beacon Capital Partners, which owns office assets such as 330 Hudson Street, expressed interest in the property, as did another buyer, the source said, but both deals fell through. The 46-story Class B tower, located on the southwest corner of Exchange Place, is just under 90 percent leased, according to CoStar Group data.
Major tenants include healthcare business services firm Maximus, which has about 55,000 square feet and shared office space provide Jay Suites, which holds 16,000 square feet. Gotham controls the building through a ground lease, running through 2035, with the estate of the late real estate mogul Sol Goldman. Gotham pays an annual rent through 2035 of only $430,000, just a fraction of the building’s estimated pre-tax net operating income of $8.7 million, according to city records.
Rents at the building, which once housed a trading floor for the New York Stock Exchange, are in the mid-$30s per square foot, according to CompStak.
Representatives for Gotham, headed by David Ishay, couldn’t be reached for comment.
Gotham bought the tower from Murray Hill Properties in 2006 for $99 million, or about $236 per square foot, according to CoStar, but is now looking to cash in on the growing appetite that some of the city’s savviest real estate investors are showing for the area. Scott Rechler’s RXR Realty entered into contract in March to buy the nearby 786,000-square-foot office building at 61 Broadway for $330 million, or about $420 per square foot.
That same month, Virginia-based Harbor Group International entered into contract to buy the 361,000-square-foot office building One Exchange Plaza at 55 Broadway for $157 million, or nearly $440 per square foot, as TRD reported.