SL Green Realty Corp. has agreed to sell the office tower at 17 Battery Place North in lower Manhattan to an affiliate of Manhattan real estate investor Moinian Group for $70 million. The transaction is expected to close during the fourth quarter. SL Green expects a profit of roughly $26 million from the sale.
The building is a 22-story office building that overlooks Battery Park and the Hudson River. SL Green also sold its sister office building at 17 Battery Place South in September 2000 to another affiliate of the Moinian Group for $53 million.
"This sale will complete a very successful acquisition, repositioning and asset-recycling program for the buildings located at 17 Battery Place. The transaction allows us to realize a substantial gain on a mature asset and to redeploy these profits into value-added opportunities," says Andrew Mathias, chief investment officer of SL Green (NYSE: SLG), an office REIT with assets concentrated in Manhattan.
Sales volume for SL Green year to date totals $469 million, including the sales of Manhattan office towers 1466 Broadway and One Park Avenue.
SL Green will use a reverse 1031 exchange to defer all resulting taxable income from the sale of the building into 750 Third Avenue, a property acquired by the company in July 2004.
