Grubb & Ellis New York

Real Estate Weekly, Jan 13, 1999

Grubb & Ellis New York has announced that it has completed the sale of two commercial properties in the Times Square District on behalf of Local 144 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the nation's third largest union with 1.2 million members.

The larger of the two properties, a nine-story post-war office building at 233 West 49th Street located between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, sold for $6.1 million to an investment group led by hotelier Sam Domb. The 40,000 square-foot building was recently vacated by the SEIU due to the merger of Local 144 and Local 1199. Domb plans to turn the vacant property into a boutique hotel.

In a separate transaction, Grubb & Ellis also represented the SEIU in the sale of a second small building nearby at 797 Eighth Avenue. The 10,000 square-foot elevatored office building is located between 48th and 49th streets. The building was purchased by a privately held investment firm for $2.1 million.

Grubb and Ellis executive managing directors Vincent Carrega and Norm Livingston, and associate managing director Neil Helman represented the SEIU in both transactions.

"Based on the tremendous redevelopment and resurgence of the Times Square area, we were able to generate a significant amount of interest from the investment community in these two properties," said Helman. "The turnaround of Times Square and continued surge in tourism made 233 West 49th Street particularly attractive for hotel conversion"