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Citigroup Center is expected to join the long lineup of Manhattan trophy properties that are already up for sale, as landlords rush to cash in on the city's real estate boom amid mounting worries
about how much longer it will last.
Dai-Ichi Life Investment Properties Inc. is working a deal with co-owner Citigroup to give the Japanese full control of the distinctive slant-topped tower so they can sell it. In this hot market, brokers
say that it could easily fetch a prime price of $400 to $450 a square foot, or as much as $810 million.
The 1970s-vintage skyscraper at 153 E. 53rd St. is in distinguished company on the auction block. Rockefeller Center and CBS' Black Rock tower are both for sale, as is a stake in Donald Trump's General Motors Building and a 99-year lease on the World
Trade Center. Also changing hands is the Seagram Building. Aby Rosen's RFR Holding has it under contract for a sky-high $567 per square foot, or $380 million.
Beyond those high-profile properties, scores of less famous Manhattan office buildings are also in play, some quite prestigious in their own right. The bottom line is that after a serious scarcity of of
offerings earlier this year, the sale market is once again booming.
The rebirth could hardly be more dramatic. From January to mid-October, just 34 Manhattan office properties worth S10 million or more apiece changed hands, for a total of $2.6 billion. During the same period last year, 75 buildings sold for an aggregate $6.3 billion, according to...