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Bridal Queen Vera Wang Inks Lease at 15 East 26th Street

Vera Wang has signed a 12-year lease for 39,000 square feet on the fourth and fifth floors at 15 East 26th Street, a 150,000-square-foot office building that is managed by Walter & Samuels.

The famous designer fashion label is expanding its Corporate Headquarters after 20 years at 225 West 39th Street, a building that is also managed by Walter & Samuels. 
Harve Shuster, executive managing director of Walter & Samuels, and Glenn H. Isaacson, vice president of CB Richard Ellis, represented the tenant in the transaction. Walter & Samuels’ James S. Gladstone represented the ownership.

“I think Madison Square Park will be great for Vera Wang and Vera Wang will be great for Madison Square Park,” said David I. Berley, Chairman of Walter & Samuels.

Angelo, Gordon, Belvedere Capital, Metropolitan Realty Associates and an investment group led by Walter & Samuels’ David I. Berley recently purchased the office building.

The commercial office building at15 East 26th Street has new ownership. Angelo, Gordon, Belvedere Capital, Metropolitan Realty Associates and an investment group led by Walter & Samuels’ David I. Berley recently purchased the 150,000-square-foot office building for $33 million in a deal that was brokered through Douglas Harmon of Eastdil Secured. Walter & Samuels is the building manager.

“We think this is an exciting office building in an exciting neighborhood,” said Berley. Tenants of the building already include restaurateur Tony May’s SD26 and airline El Al.

Situated along the northern end of Madison Square Park, the boutique building provides tenants with exceptional park views and exciting neighborhood amenities that seem to get better and better all the time.

15 Madison Square North 100% Sold

15 Madison Square North, a high-profile condominium conversion overlooking Madison Square Park, has sold out. And the building’s $165 million 2008 construction loan has been fully satisfied.

Noted that year as one of the largest construction loans in New York City, the Wells Fargo loan refinanced an existing debt structure held by Deutsche Bank and provided $31 million to complete additional conversions and additions.

Madison Park Owner, LLC, an investment group headed by Walter & Samuels, inc. Chairman David I. Berley, partnered with Deutsche Bank Real Estate Global Opportunity Group in 2004 to purchase the neo-gothic building for $109 million.

Walter & Samuels, which managed the building and handled the conversion, tapped Corcoran Group Marketing to market residences at the building. According to Corcoran, the building achieved an average sales price of $3.59 million—one of the highest averages for a development in the Madison Square Park neighborhood to-date. The highest single price achieved was $12.16 million and one residence closed at $2 million above the asking price.

“Our fifth conversion from commercial to residential, this was the most challenging because it was a conversion from office rather than loft space,” said David Berley, “and the luxury residential was at the highest end.”

Considered one of the most successful and established converters in Manhattan, Walter & Samuels has performed over 30 major residential condominium and cooperative conversions in the last 30 years.

“Long before Times Square became the center of the universe, New York City’s crossroads were at Madison Square Park. Connecting downtown to uptown, heavy industrial corridors to residential streets, and blessed with the city’s finest Queen Anne and Beaux-Arts architecture, the area around 23rd St. where Broadway meets Fifth Avenue drew top architects, entertainers and the social elite from the 1880s to the 1920s.

More than 100 years later, this neighborhood has become an architectural spectacle, with residential skyscrapers, fine dining and office building conversions bringing weathered structures back to life…”

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