Tishman Speyer Plans Tower on Far West Parcels

NEW YORK CITY—Sherwood Equities, among the first to see the redevelopment potential of the Far West Side, said Wednesday it had sold multiple Hudson Yards zoning district parcels to Tishman Speyer Properties for $200 million. Separately, Massey Knakal Realty Services announced that it had brokered the $238-million sale of the adjacent Hudson Spire site to Tishman Speyer. For its part, Tishman Speyer did not divulge sellers or financial terms Wednesday, but said it had completed a full-block assemblage and planned to develop a mixed-use office tower of up to 2.85 million square feet on the site—possibly the tallest building in the US.

The assembled development site stretches from West 34th to West 35th streets and from Tenth Avenue to the to-be developed Hudson Park and Boulevard. It was acquired in separate transactions from Sherwood and the Rosenthal family, who reportedly had hired Massey Knakal earlier this year. Sherwood had paid $8.1 million in the late 1980s to acquire the parcels it has now sold to Tishman Speyer.

“For several decades, Tishman Speyer has been one of the world's most active ground-up developers and investors, with projects currently being constructed or in the pipeline on four continents,” say Tishman Speyer's co-CEOs, Jerry Speyer and Rob Speyer. The Speyers say they found this to be “the perfect time, development site and opportunity to participate in establishing Hudson Yards as the world's next great commercial district and neighborhood.” The company sees a mix of office and street-level retail as the best use of the site's development potential.

“In the years ahead, the Hudson Yards District is sure to be the most dynamic neighborhood in the city,” says Massey Knakal chairman Robert Knakal, who brokered the Hudson Spire parcel deal along with James P. Nelson, a partner in the firm. “This is already reflected in land prices here, which have tripled within the past two and a half years.” Nelson, a blogger for GlobeSt.com, notes that the sale represented “an opportunity of a lifetime to help be part of something that will transform the city's landscape.”

For its part, Sherwood—which last September sold a vacant Hudson Yards parcel at 630 Tenth Ave. for $167.3 million to a group led by McCourt Partners, in its first New York City deal—is remaining active on the West Side. It's developing a condominium project directly adjacent to the High Line at 500 W. 21st St, and recently completed construction on 508 W. 20th St., a boutique retail gallery building it's using as a sales center for 500W21.

“We remain exceedingly bullish about Manhattan's West Side, and especially the future of Hudson Yards, but large-scale office development is not part of our core business,” says Jeffrey Katz, Sherwood's president. The sale to Tishman and last summer's sale to McCourt were intended “to harvest investments we made under favorable market conditions. In fact, we have realized more than $300 million in profits from property sales over the past seven months.”