NYC Office Sales Volume Was Low in April

No significant office sales were recorded in Manhattan in April, according to CommercialEdge data. The largest deal that month was in Brooklyn, while Long Island also recorded three sales.

Year-to-date through April, Manhattan has seen the transaction of office product worth a total of $1.84 billion, the largest office sale volume across all markets. The average price in the borough reached $949 per square foot, as Manhattan remains the most expensive U.S. market, followed by San Francisco, with an average of $776 per square foot. The national average reached $277 per square foot in the first four months of the year.

There has been a spectacular uptick in office sales in New Jersey in 2022, which achieved the second largest volume nationwide, with sales amounting to $1.54 billion year-to-date through April. Situated just next to the most expensive market in the country, New Jersey’s average price in that period reached $308 per square foot—roughly one third of Manhattan’s average. Other high-volume markets included Los Angeles ($1.45 billion), Chicago ($1.39 billion) and Dallas-Fort Worth ($1.31 billion).

In April, the largest deal in New York City was the sale of Eleven MetroTech Center in Brooklyn. Boyd Watterson Asset Management picked up the 216,000-square-foot asset from Brookfield Properties, for $121 million. Brookfield has been selling off of its Metrotech Center properties. In February, Cleveland-based Boyd Watterson purchased another asset from the same seller, when it paid $185.5 million for the 317,000-square-foot Nine MetroTech Center. In August 2021, Brookfield also finalized the $128 million sale of the 186,000-square-foot Twelve MetroTech Center, a 30-story office condo tower.

As for significant financing deals that closed in April, a joint venture of Edge Fund Advisors and HSBC refinanced 1540 Broadway, a 44-story high-rise in Times Square, also known as the Bertelsmann Building. Apollo, MSD and Monarch provided the $590 million loan for the 907,427-square-foot building that underwent renovations worth $40 million in the past three years.

CommercialEdge covers 8M+ property records in the United States. View the latest CommercialEdge national monthly office report here.