Qatari real estate investment firm Alduwaliya Asset Management is the latest Middle Eastern investor to jump into the New York City market. Alduwaliya just paid $123.5 million to buy a 17-story office building in the Garment District, sources told The Real Deal.
Lincoln Property Company put the 208,000-square-foot Art Deco property at 250 West 39th Street on the market at the end of October. The building, located between Seventh and Eighth avenues, is nearly at full occupancy, and average office asking rents there are in the $40s per square foot.
The deal closed last week for just shy of $600 per square foot, sources said, and Alduwaliya will likely treat the building as an investment opportunity.
A JLL team led by Jon Caplan brokered the deal. Neither JLL nor the seller could be reached for comment.
Lincoln Property, a Dallas-based investment firm, bought the property in 2007 from L&L Holding for $93.5 million, city records show. Office tenants include suitcase manufacturer Tumi and fashion brand Harris Dolbee.
The deal is Alduwaliya’s first in New York. The Qatari firm, which is headquartered in London, is looking to spend aggressively in global property markets. This fall, the firm bought office towers in London and Paris for approximately $224 million (€205m) and $142 million (€130m), respectively.
Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, has been particularly active in New York, having acquired a 44 percent stake in Brookfield Property Partners’ $8.6 billion Manhattan West megaproject. That fund has plans to spend $35 billion in the U.S. over the next five years.