Statuto Group To Buy Office Building from Bancorp
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Statuto Group, the owner of luxury hotels in London, Venice, and Milan, agreed to buy a Manhattan office building from New York Community Bancorp Inc. for $105 million its first investment in American real estate.
The building, across the street from Herald Square at 960 Sixth Ave., is 16 stories high with a New York Commercial Bank branch on the main floor and bank offices on the other floors. The bank, a unit of Westbury, N.Y.-based New York Community Bancorp, will leave the building in the next year and give Milan-based Statuto an opportunity to re-lease its 103,000 square feet, the managing director of London-based DTZ Real Estate Investments and an adviser to the Statuto Group, Colin Thomasson, said.
“We believe the next few years will be great years for New York,” said Mr. Thomasson, who is based in New York. “When you compare New York to other cities around the world it’s still a good value, even though people are paying historic prices for buildings here.”
The closely held Statuto Group, led by Giuseppe Statuto, is taking advantage of the declining value of the dollar to acquire a building near Macy’s department store and Pennsylvania Station at a time of falling vacancies and growing rents.
