Two Madison Avenue office buildings just half a mile apart have recently come under new ownership, according to deeds that appeared in the city register Friday.
The property at 148 Madison Ave. was bought by the head of a home goods manufacturer under the limited liability company LMR Assets for $31.3 million, records show. Jack Saadeh, president of Manhattan-based Gourmet Home Products, snagged the 16-story building between East 31st and East 32nd streets from Steven Klein through the entity 148 Mad New Owner.
Klein told Crain’s Monday that retaining control of the roughly 80,000-square-foot building — whose current tenants include the fast-food chain Five Guys, fast-casual restaurant Fields Good Chicken and a medical diagnostic imaging center — no longer made sense financially given its vacancy rate.
Come December, six-and-a-half floors out of the 16 will be empty, up from the four that currently are, he said. One tenant, CitizenM, a Netherlands-based global hotel chain, which takes up two floors of the Murray Hill building, is not renewing its lease.
“The loan was coming due at the end of the year, and I just didn’t see it as a good use of capital to try to rent and refinance it,” Klein said.
Klein picked up 148 Madison Ave., along with 152 Madison Ave., in 2001 for roughly what he sold it for. He offloaded the latter for $29 million in 2006, records show.
Saadeh of Gourmet Home Products, who took on a $19 million loan from Interaudi Bank to finance the purchase, did not respond to a request for comment, and it’s unclear what his plans are for the space.
As for the second building, just south at 89 Madison Ave. in NoMad — also known as 95 Madison Ave. — its new owner, Flushing-based Sunlight Development, is eyeing a residential conversion of the 16-story landmarked property.
Long owned by the Sklar family, the property filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2021 under the entity Ninety-Five Madison Co., according to court records and a report in PincusCo.
A judge finalized the sale earlier this month, and it was acquired by Lin Zhong Zhuo of Sunlight for $65 million, according to the deed. Michael Sklar was the signatory for the seller.
The previous owner had been mulling a transformation of 89/95 Madison Ave. for a while, Crain’s reported last year. Mayor Eric Adams held a press conference at the building, between East 28th and East 29th streets, last summer, where he pitched a rezoning spanning 40 blocks of the Garment District, NoMad and Chelsea in an effort to boost the city’s housing supply by converting largely vacant offices into apartments.
“We are throwing open the door for more housing,” Adams said at the time.
On June 13 Sunlight filed permits with the Department of Buildings to initiate the conversion, but the plans have yet to be approved, records show.
Neither attorneys for the Sklar family nor for Sunlight Development responded to a request for comment.
Julianne Cuba , 2024-06-17 19:34:15
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