Gramercy Sells NJ Office Buildings to Spear Street for $299M

Gramercy Property Trust announced that it had closed on the sale of two office buildings in Jersey City, New Jersey for $299 million, or $349 per square foot, to San Francisco-based Spear Street Capital. Commercial real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield brokered the sale of 70 Hudson Street and 90 Hudson Street, marking the largest New Jersey office deal this year. Before closing, Gramercy prepaid the mortgage debt on 70 Hudson, and Spear Street assumed the outstanding loan of $101 million on 90 Hudson.

"These are unique, irreplaceable assets, and this transaction is clearly the most significant deal to date in 2016,"said Andrew Merin, Vice Chairman within Cushman & Wakefield of New Jersey, Inc., who notes that his team had orchestrated a previous sale of the subject properties in 2011. "This is the only office availability greater than 200,000 square feet and the largest contiguous availability along the Hudson Waterfront. The new ownership will be able to capitalize on the market's strong leasing momentum and cyclically improving rents compared to Manhattan."

70 Hudson Street is a 409,272 square foot, 12-story office building originally constructed in 2000 and is currently vacant after Barclay's recent departure; Cushman & Wakefield are handling the leasing assignment of the property. 90 Hudson Street is also 12 stories tall and covers 418,046 square feet of space; occupancy information was not disclosed. The sale of both properties is part of Gramercy Property Trust's previously announced plan to dispose of select single and multi-tenant office assets.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Partners.

10 Exchange Place Sold for $285M

Manulife Real Estate, the global real estate arm of Canada-based Manulife Financial Corporation, acquired 10 Exchange Place in Jersey City, NJ for $285 million this month. Manulife picked up the property from a client of Invesco.

"This is kind of unusual," Andrew J. Merin, of Cushman & Wakefield's Metropolitan Area Capital Markets Group, which orchestrated the sale, told GlobeSt.com. Merin, David W. Bernhaut, Gary Gabriel, Brian J. Whitmer and Kyle B. Schmidt represented the seller, a client of Invesco, in the transaction. "Over $1 billion in bricks and sticks will have traded. [...] There is not a lot of quality out there. In July, the market started to slow down. [But] Manulife did all their homework."

"Manulife is always looking for opportunities to grow our real estate investment portfolio and we're extremely pleased to secure these exceptional assets in what are three very important and diverse real estate investment markets," said Kevin Adolphe, Chief Operating Officer of Manulife's Investment Division and President and CEO of Manulife Real Estate. "We are optimistic about the possibilities in these and other key markets and we continue to look for core office, industrial and multi-family residential property investments throughout Canada, the United States and Asia."

Completed in 1988, the 748,005-square-foot building was the recent recipient of BOMA's 2011 TOBY (The Outstanding Building of the Year) award for buildings over 500,000 square feet. LEED-Gold and Energy Star certified, the iconic tower offers unobstructed views of lower Manhattan from every floor. The property was 100% leased at the time of sale with major tenants including ACE Insurance, Daikin McQuay, Kuehne + Nagel, Rabobank, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Amazon.com.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.