The 29-story office building at 100 Wall St. is being sold by Savanna to Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers for $275 million, the highest price-per-square-foot paid for a downtown building east of Broadway.
The 1969-era glass tower near the East River is bounded by Wall, Front, Water and Pine streets. At roughly 520,000 feet, the space’s price tag works out to $528 per square foot.
Based in Hartford, Conn, Cornerstone is an indirect subsidiary of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company and has $47 billion in global real estate assets managed or serviced.
Savanna, led by managing partners Christopher Schlank and Nicholas Bienstock, hired investment brokers Douglas Harmon and Adam Spies of Eastdil Secured to market the building. The sales contract signed earlier this month is expected to close later this summer, sources said. The parties either declined to comment or did not return calls or e-mails.
The Emery Roth & Sons-designed building was the beneficiary of more than $26 million in improvements since Savanna bought it from Lehman Bros. in 2011 for roughly $120 million. It is also indicative of downtown’s velocity as its traditional appeal to financial and insurance firms expands to leases made by tech, advertising, media and fashion companies.
The price to purchase bricks and mortar has been on the rise but can be half or less of that being paid uptown. Some of the in-place leases are also roughly $10 to $15 below current market pricing as rents have sharply risen with the increased interest.
Since the downturn in 2008, downtown buildings have steadily increased sales pricing from Capstone’s purchase of 156 William St. for $60 million in the high $200s per square foot in 2008, to 80 Broad’s recent sale from Savanna for $173 million, or $410 per square foot. Chase Manhattan Plaza, now known as 28 Liberty, sold for $330 a square foot.
This deal will close later this summer.
Meanwhile, Savanna has just signed five new leases totaling more than 40,000 square feet and bringing occupancy to 97 percent. The company has signed 355,000 square feet of deals since purchasing the building in 2011.
Mitchell Konsker, Scott Cahaly and Kyle Young of Jones Lang LaSalle handled leasing for Savanna.
Some details on the new leases:
- The nonprofit InterExchange leased 14,513 square feet represented by Robert Sattler and Eric Thomas of Cresa New York.
- The private banking Loeb Holding Corporation leased 11,540 feet represented by Christopher Corrinet, Scott Bogetti and Michael Rizzo of CBRE.
- The global lifestyle fashion brand GANT leased 8,332 square feet, represented by Nicholas Woodhull and Jonathan Schindler of DTZ.
- Executive talent firm Crenshaw Associates leased 4,449 feet represented by Whitney Anderson and Sheena Gohil of Colliers.
- Consultants PCubed leased 4,044 square feet, represented by Elyse Candella of Cresa and Wes Rudes of Cushman & Wakefield.