Union Investment and Nuveen Real Estate have jointly divested the retail property at 1511 Third Avenue in Manhattan's Upper East Side, New York. The acquirer of this property is Stockbridge, a real estate investment company based in San Francisco, California. The financial terms of this transaction remain confidential.
The property was acquired by Union Investment in 2016 as part of a joint venture with Nuveen Real Estate, then known as TH Real Estate. This acquisition was made for the open-ended retail real estate fund UniImmo: Global, which held a 49 per cent stake in the property. The original transaction encompassed a total of four retail properties in the USA and marked the entry of the Hamburg-based real estate investment manager into the American retail market in the 'Prime Urban Retail' category.
The asset at 1511 Third Avenue is fully let and comprises a total area of 1,625 square metres, distributed across four upper floors and a basement. The main areas on the ground floor and in the basement are occupied by the apparel company Gap. The upper floors are leased to the luxury fitness company Equinox.
Kseniya Merritt, Senior Vice President and Head of Retail Investments North America at Union Investment, commented on the divestment. She emphasised that in a transaction market characterised by limited activity and high US interest rates, the opportunity was seized to sell this retail property. The sale was made for portfolio strategic reasons and contributes to improving the fund's liquidity position.
Earlier in 2024, Union Investment and Nuveen Real Estate had already divested another retail property from their joint venture portfolio, namely the asset at 636 Sixth Avenue in Manhattan's Flatiron District, New York. UniImmo: Global continues to hold a 49 per cent stake in the two remaining retail properties, which were originally acquired as part of the same joint venture deal. These are located in prime retail locations in San Francisco and Philadelphia.
For the current transaction, CBRE's New York retail team, led by Doug Middleton and Jack Stillwagon, acted as the brokering agent.
