Vornado Completes $218M Manhattan Tower Acquisition
The office building last traded in 2002.
Vornado Realty Trust has completed the acquisition of 623 Fifth Ave., a 382,500-rentable-square-foot office tower in Manhattan. Cohen Brothers Realty sold the asset for $218 million. Vornado entered an agreement to purchase the high-rise last month.
The office condominium property had previously been under Cohen Brothers’ ownership since 2002, when the company acquired it from UBS, Yardi Research Data shows.
Completed in 1923 to serve as the headquarters of Swiss Bank, 623 Fifth Ave. was redeveloped in 1990 and underwent cosmetic renovations in 2016. The property features column-free floorplates averaging 14,486 square feet, rising 36 stories above the 80,000-square-foot flagship Saks Fifth Avenue department store.
The tenant roster includes Equinox Partners LP, Kaneka Americas Holdings Inc., South Street Advisors and HCLTech, according to the same source. The property was 75 percent leased at the time of the sale. The new ownership plans to reposition and redevelop 623 Fifth Ave. into a boutique office building, with completion scheduled for 2027.
The building is located in the Plaza District, adjacent to Rockefeller Center and less than 1 mile from Empire State Building. Vornado’s newest acquisition is also close to other assets in the company’s portfolio, including 280 Park Ave., 350 Park Ave., 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 640 Fifth Ave. and 595 Madison Ave.
Manhattan office sales surge
In the first eight months of 2025, Manhattan registered more than $4 billion in office investment sales, with 46 properties trading at an average of $515.23 per square foot, Yardi Research Data shows. The figure is significantly higher than the one recorded during the same period last year, when 23 properties changed hands at an average price of $430.81 per square foot, amounting to a total of $2.3 billion in office sales.
July saw average listing rates in the borough drop 4.7 percent year-over-year to $67.97 per square foot, more than double the $32.72 national average, according to the latest Yardi Matrix office report. Manhattan’s vacancy rates also dropped to 15.2 percent during the same month, reflecting a 130-basis-point drop in the last 12 months.
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