Upper Eastside Building Hits Market

NEW YORK CITY-The Decorators Center Building at 315 E. 62nd St. has been put on the market. Newmark Knight Frank is exclusively marketing the 63,000-sf, 100% occupied property, which should go for $35 million.

Ken Zakin, senior managing director at Newmark, says the building, which now houses a retail component on the ground level, a couple office tenants and mostly design showrooms, could be purchased for a variety of uses. The surrounding area is mostly office buildings and residential complexes, either of which are a possibility for 315 E. 62nd St. Zakin also says it could become a boutique hotel or medical office complex.

The building is currently owned by an estate that is in the process of liquidation. In 1960 the building was net leased through 2011, which Zakin says is the only glitch in the sales plans. A company interested in the property would not be able to move in or begin renovations for another 4 years when the net lease ends and all the subleases expire. “It’s a positioning play,” he says.

Built in 1911, the building originally housed a Cuban cigar manufacturer, according to Zakin. The Decorators Center consists of two attached buildings, the larger being six stories and the second just three floors.

According to Zakin retail lease rents in the area average between $100 and $130 per sf. Commercial space varies, especially since a lot of the area is leased not on a per sf basis but as a whole, but Zakin says rents hit between $40 and $50 per sf.

Zakin, Neil Joffee, Barbara Craig and Randall Liberman, all with Newmark, are handling this transaction.