Historic office building changes hands
Rockwood Capital and Midtown Equities are poised to sell their prominent office building One Broadway in Lower Manhattan. Japanese construction and real estate group Takenaka Corporation has signed an agreement to acquire the property for 170 million dollars. People familiar with the matter confirmed the signing of the preliminary agreement. Negotiations on the brokerage side were led by Marcella Fasulo, Adam Spies, Willis Robbins, Adam Doneger and Josh King of real estate advisory firm Newmark.
The twelve-storey property offers around 230,000 square feet of space and is currently fully let. The majority is occupied by financial services company Fiserv, which takes up roughly 92 per cent of the building. The ground-floor retail space is occupied by Citibank. According to an offering memorandum, Fiserv has already invested 67 million dollars in fitting out its leased premises, while a further 30 million dollars is earmarked for the remaining fit-out.
Repositioning and selective US investments
Built in 1884, the structure has a storied history and once served as the headquarters of J.P. Morgan's International Mercantile Marine Company. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the building underwent a comprehensive core refurbishment in 2020. Rockwood Capital and Midtown Equities acquired the property in 2018 for 140 million dollars to reposition it as modern office space. Around a year ago, the owners finally brought the asset to market. In the same month, Rockwood transferred its operating units to Harrison Street Asset Management, with Rockwood formally acting as the selling party.
For Takenaka, led by Toichi Takenaka, the purchase joins a series of notable trophy assets in the US market. The Japanese company has steadily expanded its overseas portfolio over recent decades:
- —Acquisition of the Grand Hyatt Kauai on the Hawaiian island of Kauai in the 1990s
- —Ownership of the Hyatt Andaz 5th Avenue in New York
- —Purchase of the 400 California Street office tower in San Francisco in 2016 via a joint venture with Kennedy Wilson
- —Acquisition of the Tilt 49 office building in Seattle, fully let to Amazon, in 2017
Rockwood Capital, Harrison Street Asset Management and Newmark declined to comment on the transaction. An enquiry to Takenaka Corporation was not immediately answered.
