Vornado to buy rest of One Park Avenue

Vornado Realty Trust is nearing a deal to become the sole owner of One Park Avenue.

On Tuesday, the company announced it agreed to acquire the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s 45 percent stake in the Midtown building. The deal is expected to close this quarter, according to the Commercial Observer.

Vornado will be paying $158 million in cash and assume the pension fund’s portion of the $525 million of debt on One Park Avenue. The deal values the 943,000-square-foot building at $875 million.

In 2011, Vornado spent $180 million to recapitalize and seize control of the building from Murray Hill Properties. At the time, the company also secured $250 million in debt. Since then, Vornado’s interest in the building has grown.

A few months ago, Vornado and the CPPIB worked with Deutsche Bank and Barclays on a $525 million commercial mortgage-backed securities refinance of the building, Commercial Observer reported. The deal was for a two-year, interest-only, floating-rate mortgage securitized in a single-asset, single-borrower CMBS deal. It was one of the largest post-Covid office financings.

One Park Avenue tenants, include Robert A.M. Stern Architects, Equinox, and NYU Langone Medical Center, which recently expanded to 633,000 square feet. As of February, the building was 98 percent leased to 22 tenants.

[CO] — Holden Walter-Warner