Lois Weiss

Lois Weiss

Real Estate

Ex-Tribeca Film Festival home to be sold for $90M

T🌠he former home of the Tribeca Film Festival at 17 Laight St. is in contract to be sold to Richard Coles and🎃 Gary Tischler’s Vanbarton Group for $90 million.

The ink is barely dry on the deal, sources said. The 115,000-square-foot building sits on the northern end of the Tribeca block bounded by Varick and Laight streets and St. John’s Lane by Canal Street, and has open v🦂iews in three directions.

The sellers, controlled by James Bishop’s WhiteStar Advisors of Boca Raton, Fla., with Zach Vella and Justin Ehrlich of VE Equities, paid $56 million for the former warehouse at the end of 2012. They proce💧eded to buy all the office tenants out of their leases, including Tribeca Film, which received $2.8 million at the end of June 2016, records show.

Vanbart🌌on expects to redevelop the buildings into a premier mixed-use office, retail and lifestyle facility.

The company owns, among others,ꦦ 45 W. 45th St., 180 and 160 Water St. in Manhattan and 47-16 Austell Place and 35-37 36th St. in Long Island City.

No one returned requests for comment.


A stalled development project at ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ30 Thompson St. in Soho between Grand and Watts streets is being auc🅺tioned by Ten-X, in cooperation with Cushman & Wakefield. Although the opening bid must start at $4 million, pricing is expected to end much higher when the gavel falls.

Back in 1985, Lawrence Gaslow paid $450,000 for the one-story warehouse and mortgaged it for more than $3 million. Over the years, Gaslow transferred it to various family LLCs, the last of which, Silver Street (2010), ꦦsold it to a venture of The Mavrix Group, Weis Group and Walker Ridge in 2015 for $13,069,735, while taking back a $9.♏5 million mortgage.

The developers came up with futuristic plans for an eight-story building with sev🥂en residences and automated parking designed by Karim Rashid.

But they are awaiting rezoning approvals to full r🐎esidential from the current l💛ive/work occupancy originally created to encourage artist studios.

Meanwhile, as city luxe condo sales have sputtered and land sales have dragged since t💟he 421-a expired in June 2015, the investors got antsy and the property was listed with “aspirational pricing” by C&W, genera𓄧ting some interest but no buzz.

“Right now, the market is trying to find it🐷self and our client wants to sell,” said James Nelson, who is leading the C&W team. The auction process was chosen, Nelson explained, “to create urgency when it doesn’t exist.”

“This is an amazing si💫te to build a single-family home or townhouse or stick with the plans♋ for condos, which are rare in Soho,” Nelson added.

The 29-foot-by-94-foot site can be developed to about 13,600 squa♍re feet.

New renderings that are less “Jetsons” and more genteel were also created by architect Marco Marcellini.

Pierre Bonan, vice president of Ten-Xꦯ, said, “The reserve price is unpublished and confidential, and while there is a preliminary reserve, t♔he seller can lower it prior to the auction that begins on Aug. 22 and ends Aug. 24.”


It’s all about the space.

A Hudson’s Bay space crunch at Brookfield Place coupled with an offer they couldn’t refuse for a floor at 2 P⛎ark Ave. has sent Jason꧟ Binn’s luxury lifestyle magazine, DuJour, spinning off into its own location.

As we first reported Tuesday at btc365-futebol.com, DuJour’s crew will be moving from 2 Pa♚rk Ave. to its own spots at 530 Seventh Ave. on Aug. 29.

The three dozen staffers have been sharing💟 space on the fourth and fifth floors with one of its original ♊investors — the Gilt Groupe — with Binn as its chief adviser.

To pump up its own digital sales and marketing, Richard Baker’s Hudson’s Baꩵy Co., which also owns Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avಞenue, bought Gilt in January for $250 million.

In deals represented by CBRE, Hudson’s Bay is moving its own HQ to Brookfield Place, where it will also open a Saks Fif♒th Avenue store and a Saks OFF 5th nearby.

Recently, in a transaction reported by the Real Dea𝐆l, CBRE brokers subleased Gilt’s fifth-floor s🐽pace of 49,694 square feet at 2 Park to the Trade Desk.

The growing🔥 ad tech firm will move from a smalle🐲r spot at 386 Park Ave. South. Asking rents are $64 per square foot, according to CoStar.

That sent DuJour scouting on Mid🌌town South and landing at 530 Seventh Ave. The company will have two private spaces within Space 530 on the mezzanine — operated by the 𝐆Savitt Partners building ownership.

Binn could not be reached, but sources say despite the separate identity and offic��es, they will “of course” continue to work together🌟.