750 Seventh Avenue,
New York

Fosterlane Management Corp. has acquired 750 Seventh Avenue, a 34-story, 600,000 sq. ft. office tower in Manhattan for $485 million, or slightly more than $800 per sq. ft. The seller was Houston-based Hines.

Completed in 1989, 750 Seventh Avenue was designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning architecture firm Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo Associates. It is one of a limited number of buildings constructed in the core of Midtown in the last 20 years.

Hines and an institutional equity partner acquired the property from Morgan Stanley in 2000. Morgan Stanley had been the building’s owner since 1994 and was a long-term major tenant, occupying more than half of the building. Over the course of a decade of ownership, Hines kept the building fully occupied and extended all of the leases in the property on a long-term basis.

“We are happy to have selected Fosterlane as the new owner of 750 Seventh Avenue. Together we share a 30-year history of successful real estate investment and development,” said Hines Senior Vice President Tommy Craig in a press release. “Our success with this asset only further reinforces our confidence in New York City as the strongest real estate market in the U.S.”

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Hines and Atlanta-based Fosterlane carried out the development and construction of a portfolio of projects which established Hines’ presence and reputation in the local marketplace including the development of 31 West 52nd Street, the Lipstick Building (E. 53^rd St. At Third Avenue), and 225 High Ridge Road in Stamford, Conn.

Hines continues to also be active on other development projects in New York. At 1045 Sixth Avenue, Hines is working with Pacolet Milliken on a commercial building designed by Pei Cobb Freed. At 53 W. 53rd St., Hines is developing a Jean Nouvel-designed mixed-use tower adjacent to the Museum of Modern Art.

Hines has been active in the New York market since 1981, having developed in excess of 15 million sq. ft. in the area.