Met Life Agrees to Sell Stuy Town to Tishman Speyer for $5.4 Billion
In what is believed to be the most expensive real estate transaction in American history, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company has agreed to sell Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village on Manhattan's East Side for $5.4 billion to an investment group led by Tishman Speyer, real estate sources told The New York Sun.
The deal is expected to net the city and state more than $100 million in tax revenues.
In August, Met Life through CB Richard Ellis began marketing the two housing complexes built following World War II to house veterans and their families. Together the complexes contain 110 buildings and more than 11,200 apartments over 80 acres between First Avenue and the East River, from 14th Street to 23rd Street.
The prospect of controlling such a large swath of Manhattan real estate drew interest from the city's biggest developers, including Vornado Realty Trust, the Related Companies, Apollo Real Estate Advisors, investment banks, overseas investors, and pension funds. The insurance company whittled down the field of bidders and accepted a second round of bids from finalists yesterday. The deal is expected be announced tomorrow.
Tishman Speyer, which controls Rockefeller Center, has partnered with the Blackrock Group and the California State Teachers' Retirement System, the second-largest public pension fund in the United States, according to sources familiar with the deal.
The sale would be the second blockbuster deal between Met Life and Tishman Speyer. Last year, the insurance giant sold the Met Life Building at 200 Park Ave., the 58-story, 2.8 million square-foot office tower formerly known as the Pan-Am building, for $1.72 billion, the highest recorded price for an office building in America. The buyer was a joint venture of Tishman Speyer, the New York City Employees' Retirement System, and the New York City Teachers' Retirement System.
