Carter's View
The Zar Group has bought the 42-story office tower at 1450 Broadway on the southeast corner at 41st Street for $204 million and Bobby Zar, the company's chief executive said that its plan is to lease up the offices but that it is in the long term considering converting it into residential space, according to article yesterday at Amanda Fung at crainsnewyork.com.
The building was sold by a partnership of The Chetrit Group, The Moinian Group and Edward J. Minskoff Equities.
The acquisition "marks the Manhattan-based Zar Group's entry into the city's office market, according to Avi Zukerman, director of acquisitions at The Zar Group," which was formerly known as Zar City Properties and recently completed a few development deals, but it declined to elaborate on those deals, the article said.
"We've always wanted to own a Times Square trophy property," said Mr. Zukerman, adding that the firm had been looking to buy prior to the downturn but felt prices were too high so it stayed on the sidelines, the article said, adding that "the location is unbeatable."
The article said that the 400,200-square-foot tower has a vacancy rate of 14 percent, he said, noting that its full-floor office spaces will be appealing to tenants. Tenants in the building include high-end fashion companies such as BCBG and Iconix Brand Group.
"We are very bullish and true believers in the New York City market," said Mr. Zar, adding that he expects to make similar acquisitions.
The building, which is one block west of Bryant Park and one block south of Times Square, was erected as the Continental Building in 1931 and designed by Ely Jacques Kahn.
In their great book, "New York 1930, Architecture and Urbanism Between The Two World Wars," (Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1987), Robert A. M. Stern, Gregory Gilmartin and Thomas Mellins devote a chapter to "Three Modern Masters" of architecture: Ely Jacques Kahn, Ralph Walker and Raymond Hood.
"Of the three architects, Ely Jacques Kahn was in some senses the most extreme representative of the new pragmatism. Hood and Walker designed corporate monuments, and Walker, whatever his birthright, modeled his public persona on the gentlemen-architects of the previous generation. The task Kahn set himself was to rescue the industrial loft building and the common, speculative office building from the aristocratic indifference of the Composite Era....He quickly established himself as one the most prolific architects of his generation, erecting more than thirty buildings between 1924 and 1931....An engaged tower, the Continental Building rose forty-two stories...from a shallow lot measuring only 76 by 173 feet. The seventeen-story base framed a shallow light court above the fifth floor. The setbacks above were developed as tiled terraces opening off the office floors. A rectangular tower rose from the back of the lot at the twenty-sixth floor; at the top it was transformed into a square mass wearing an octagonal crow. The glistening white elevations of marble, terra-cotta and glazed brick extended the vision of a city of pearly towers first stated by the Candler Building on Forty-second Street and more eloquently developed by Raymond Hood in the Daily News Building."
Kahn's other important New York City buildings include the Squibb Building on the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue at 58th Street, 2 Park Avenue and the Bricken Casino Building at 1410 Broadway at 39th Street.
In 1937, Ayn Rand worked as a typist without pay in Kahn's office to research her novel The Fountainhead.
The building was acquired by The Moinian Group for about $124 million from a partnership of Murray Hill Properties and ING Realty Partners that had acquired it in 2001 from Orix Realy Estate Equities for $94.4 million.
The building was sold by a partnership of The Chetrit Group, The Moinian Group and Edward J. Minskoff Equities.
The acquisition "marks the Manhattan-based Zar Group's entry into the city's office market, according to Avi Zukerman, director of acquisitions at The Zar Group," which was formerly known as Zar City Properties and recently completed a few development deals, but it declined to elaborate on those deals, the article said.
"We've always wanted to own a Times Square trophy property," said Mr. Zukerman, adding that the firm had been looking to buy prior to the downturn but felt prices were too high so it stayed on the sidelines, the article said, adding that "the location is unbeatable."
The article said that the 400,200-square-foot tower has a vacancy rate of 14 percent, he said, noting that its full-floor office spaces will be appealing to tenants. Tenants in the building include high-end fashion companies such as BCBG and Iconix Brand Group.
"We are very bullish and true believers in the New York City market," said Mr. Zar, adding that he expects to make similar acquisitions.
The building, which is one block west of Bryant Park and one block south of Times Square, was erected as the Continental Building in 1931 and designed by Ely Jacques Kahn.
In their great book, "New York 1930, Architecture and Urbanism Between The Two World Wars," (Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1987), Robert A. M. Stern, Gregory Gilmartin and Thomas Mellins devote a chapter to "Three Modern Masters" of architecture: Ely Jacques Kahn, Ralph Walker and Raymond Hood.
"Of the three architects, Ely Jacques Kahn was in some senses the most extreme representative of the new pragmatism. Hood and Walker designed corporate monuments, and Walker, whatever his birthright, modeled his public persona on the gentlemen-architects of the previous generation. The task Kahn set himself was to rescue the industrial loft building and the common, speculative office building from the aristocratic indifference of the Composite Era....He quickly established himself as one the most prolific architects of his generation, erecting more than thirty buildings between 1924 and 1931....An engaged tower, the Continental Building rose forty-two stories...from a shallow lot measuring only 76 by 173 feet. The seventeen-story base framed a shallow light court above the fifth floor. The setbacks above were developed as tiled terraces opening off the office floors. A rectangular tower rose from the back of the lot at the twenty-sixth floor; at the top it was transformed into a square mass wearing an octagonal crow. The glistening white elevations of marble, terra-cotta and glazed brick extended the vision of a city of pearly towers first stated by the Candler Building on Forty-second Street and more eloquently developed by Raymond Hood in the Daily News Building."
Kahn's other important New York City buildings include the Squibb Building on the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue at 58th Street, 2 Park Avenue and the Bricken Casino Building at 1410 Broadway at 39th Street.
In 1937, Ayn Rand worked as a typist without pay in Kahn's office to research her novel The Fountainhead.
The building was acquired by The Moinian Group for about $124 million from a partnership of Murray Hill Properties and ING Realty Partners that had acquired it in 2001 from Orix Realy Estate Equities for $94.4 million.
Additional Info About the Building
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.