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Carlyle, Crown Wrap Up Real Estate Buy
Retail occupants in the building include new tenant Abercrombie & Fitch, the NBA Store and Hickey Freeman.
July 2, 2008
The Carlyle Group and Crown Acquisitions said Wednesday they have completed their $525 million joint venture purchase of a controlling interest in the retail segment of 666 Fifth Avenue from the building’s owner, Kushner Cos.
Barclays and SL Green served as lenders to the transaction arranged by Carlton Advisory Services.
The investment gives Washington-based Carlyle, a veteran investor in real estate that funded the purchase from its $3 billion Carlyle Realty Partners V real estate fund, and real estate developer Stanley Chera’s Crown Acquisition control of 90,000 square feet of retail property in a storied building in Midtown Manhattan.
“This is a landmark building in Manhattan’s prime retail shopping district,” said Robert G. Stuckey, head of Carlyle’s US real estate team. He added, “Locations with high national and international foot traffic such as Manhattan’s Gold Coast present unparalleled exposure and brand placement to their retail tenants.”
Retail occupants in the building include new tenant Abercrombie & Fitch, the NBA Store and Hickey Freeman.
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett served as counsel to Carlyle and Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson was counsel to Kushner.
Crown Acquisitions owns 15 million square feet of retail and office property in major North American cities including Boston, Chicago, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, and Toronto.
For Carlton Advisory the transaction is in line with other major real estate property deals it has managed over the last three years involving properties like the General Motors building, the Bank of America Tower and Sears Tower.
In a separate real estate-related matter this week Carlyle Realty, the real estate investment arm of the Carlyle Group, arranged a $613 million construction loan for developing two luxury residential buildings at Riverside South on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Deutsche Bank led a consortium of nine banks that provided the financing, which was arranged by Holiday Fenoglio Fowler.
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