(New York) Less than two months after a previous bid fell through, an iconic New York building, the ‘Flatiron’, sold at auction on Tuesday for $161 million to a group of buyers led by the real estate developer Jeff Gural, announced the company organizing the sale.
The sale took place in the open air, in lower Manhattan, in front of a hundred people, and seven buyers were registered, indicated the company Mannion Auctions.
Jeff Gural, 80, is no stranger to the “Flatiron”, as he represents 75% of the owners of the iron-shaped building.
A 22-story, 87-meter-tall office building at the intersection of 22nd Street, Fifth Avenue and Broadway, the “Flatiron” was built in 2 years and completed in 1902, in Beaux-Arts style.
Its pointed shape, recognizable among all and which gave it its name, is explained by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway, the only artery in Manhattan not aligned with the rectilinear plane of the island.
On March 23, the building was sold for the first time for $ 190 million, under an order from the city, to settle a dispute between its owners.
But the buyer, financier Jacob Garlick, founder of the Abraham Trust investment fund, had not paid the $19 million upfront by March 24.
The building could already have gone to Jeff Gural, boss of GFP Real Estate, who had offered 189.5 million dollars, but the latter preferred to wait for new auctions to be organized.
The “Iron” had been empty since 2019 when its last tenant, publisher MacMillan Publishers, left.
The five owners could not agree on its renovation, nor on its use. Four real estate companies – GFP Real Estate, Newmark, ABS Real Estate Partners and Sorgente Group – controlled it 75%.
The fifth partner, Nathan Silverstein, controlled the remaining 25%.
In 2021, the four companies sued Nathan Silverstein, accusing him of leaving the “Flatiron” empty.
The municipal justice had ordered the owners to sell the building at auction.