Famous international real estate firm, Hines, has put up two of its commercial towers located in the heart of Manhattan, New York, for Sale. The two buildings that have been listed are - 499 Park Avenue and 425 Lexington Avenue.
The 499 Park Avenue building currently houses the headquarters of global financial services firm, Cantor Fitzgerald. Earlier, it was the headquarters of Bloomberg LP. Located at Park Avenue and 59 street, the building was purchased by Hines in 2003 from Sumitomo Life Realty. The building gets its moniker, "Black Diamond" as it is a sleek 28-story building made of complete black glass. It occupies around 300,000 square feet of prime commercial space in the area.
While 499 Park Avenue is known as one of the best boutique office buildings, 425 Lexington Avenue is also a popular building. Built in 1987, the structure takes up around 750,000 square feet of commercial space in the area. The building is located directly across the famous Chrysler Building and Grand Central Station. It houses the head office of prominent law firms Simpson Thatcher and Bartlett LLC and CIBC.
"We have had outstanding success with these two assets over the last 10 years in terms of investment performance, and the interest we expect both locally and globally only reinforces our continuing commitment to New York City as the world's preeminent global real estate location," Tommy Craig, senior managing director of Hines for the New York office, said in a statement.
Both the buildings are being marketed by real estate firm CBRE Group Inc. while the financial details will be taken care of by real estate banking firm, Eastdil Secured.
New York's commercial real estate scenario is warming up. Listing of the two buildings comes just a week since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc offered its 231 Park Avenue building for sale, reports Reuters.
More recently, tech giant, Sony Corp. sold its headquarters in Madison Avenue for $1.1 billion in January. Time Warner is also considering selling its headquarters at Columbus Circle in New York.
