NEW YORK CITY-The California State Teachers Retirement System has sold its majority ownership of 120 Broadway, a 1.8-million-square-foot landmark in Lower Manhattan, to UBS Realty Investors for $341 million. The pension fund had acquired its 65% stake in the 40-story office tower for $240 million in 2004, and had it on the market for nearly a year.

A CalSTRS spokesman confirms a report of the 120 Broadway sale that appeared late Tuesday afternoon on the website of the Wall Street Journal but declines to comment further, while a spokesman for Silverstein Properties Inc. confirms that SPI will retain its 35% ownership and continue as property manager. The office tower, which counts GlobeSt.com parent company ALM among its tenants, has been in the SPI portfolio since 1981.

In late July 2010, Bloomberg reported that CB Richard Ellis had been tapped to market the national historic landmark on behalf of CalSTRS. A CBRE spokesman tells GlobeSt.com that the investment sales duo of Darcy Stacom and William Shanahan, both vice chairmen with the firm, handled the sale. GlobeSt.com’s calls to UBS were not returned by deadline Wednesday.

The sale of the 120 Broadway stake provides another example of Downtown’s rising fortunes. Eleven months before the majority ownership of the 96-year-old office property went on the market, a joint venture of Kumho Investment Corp. and Youngwoo & Associates closed on its acquisition of the former AIG headquarters at 70 Pine St. and 72 Wall St. The combined $150-million purchase price equated to $103 per square foot on 70 Pine and $114 per square foot on 72 Wall, according to data from Real Capital Analytics.

More recently, the two properties traded once again for a total of $101 million more in two separate transactions, according to RCA. This past December, SouFun Holdings went into contract on 72 Wall for $46 million, and in June of this year, the Kumho/Youngwoo JV sold 70 Pine to Metro Loft Management for $205 million. The 66-story property’s new owner reportedly plans to convert it from office space into residential condominiums.