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GreenOak grows with Related partnership

Related Fund Management and GreenOak have formed a joint venture and acquired two commercial assets

Related Fund Management and GreenOak have formed a joint venture and acquired two commercial assets in Long Island City, the Paragon Building and the Blanchard Building.

Both buildings are located in the Hunter’s Point corridor of Long Island City and offer access to the No. 7 subway, Long Island Railroad and Midtown Manhattan.

The purchase price was $110 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The partnership will make “significant investmentsˮ to reposition the buildings and provide a modern, open plan office environment. They have retained Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, led by vice chairman Brian Waterman, to oversee the leasing of the properties and Studios Architecture for the design work.

Justin Metz, managing principal of Related Fund Management said, “These two assets were an ideal fit for our execution-based strategy and will draw on our development and operational expertise as we transform these buildings into well amenitized, class A office space.

“Long Island City is quickly becoming one of the most desirable neighborhoods to live and work and these buildings, adjacent to both the subway and LIRR, are ideally located to attract tenants and talent from the region.”

Sonny Kalsi, founder and partner of GreenOak said, “We continue to be very active investing in New York City as it is part of our core strategy of building scale in a handful of global gateway cities. We are excited about investing with a world class operator in a rapidly improving office location and are confident in our ability to jointly reposition these two assets.”

Brian Waterman added, “These buildings offer a unique opportunity for modern office space in one of New York’s most sought-after locations. They are ideally located to draw creative, technology and corporate tenants and will offer premier amenities in a 24/7 neighborhood.”

The seven-story Paragon Building, located directly above the No. 7 subway station on 21-00 49th Avenue, had most recently been used as a storage facility and will be reimagined as a Class A office building with all new windows, elevators and a penthouse roof terrace with incredible city views.

Expected delivery is summer 2017. Renovations to the seven-story Blanchard Building will include significant upgrades to the building’s aesthetics, mechanical systems and amenity packages. GreenOak is an investing, lending and advisory firm formed in 2010 with offices in New York, Los Angeles, London, Seoul, Madrid, Munich and Tokyo.

The company currently has approximately $5.6 billion of assets under management globally and has raised $3.5 billion of equity to invest in targeted strategies and assets as of September 2015, according to its website.

Just last week, the company closed on a $163 million commercial condo unit at the Met Tower in Midtown. In January, GreenOak partnered with Slate Property Group to buy RiverTower at Sutton Place for $390 million from Equity Residential.

Slate and GreenOak plan to reposition RiverTower as a full-service rental.

GreenOak is also an equity partner with L&L Holding Company in the construction of 425 Park Avenue. The company also owns 123 William Street, a 547,000 s/f office building in Lower Manhattan.

Source: Real Estate Weekly