GREENWICH — The owner of a number of prominent commercial properties in Greenwich and other parts of Connecticut has acquired an office building in the town’s Old Greenwich section for $15.5 million.
HBN 53 Forest LLC, which is managed by HB Nitkin, bought the 43,985-square-foot building at 53 Forest Ave., which stands adjacent to the Old Greenwich Metro-North Railroad station, commercial real estate firm CBRE announced this week. The seller was Collins 53 Forest LLC, an entity managed by Collins Capital Partners LLC.
Greenwich is familiar territory for HB Nitkin, whose other properties in the town include the downtown Greenwich Armory building, at 230 Mason St., which houses Nitkin’s offices; the downtown Greenwich Financial Center, at 1 Fawcett Place; 369 Greenwich Ave., which houses retail and dining tenants; and the office building at 41 W. Putnam Ave. Nitkin also has properties in Branford, Cromwell, Danbury, Fairfield, Hartford, Killingly, Orange, Stamford, Waterbury, Westport and White Plains, N.Y.
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“HB Nitkin’s depth of experience with discerning Greenwich tenants should allow them to harvest additional revenue through the lease-up of well-positioned vacant space,” Steven Bardsley, of CBRE’s Institutional Properties Group, said in a written statement.
Bardsley and three other members of the Institutional Properties Group — Jeffrey Dunne, Travis Langer and Daniel Blumenkrantz — represented the owner in the transaction, while they also procured the buyer.
Fifty-three Forest has long been a hub for firms focusing on money management and alternative investments. The property is 82 percent leased, according to CBRE.
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The asking rent at 53 Forest is $65 per square foot on an annual basis, CBRE officials said. The property, “provides tenants a high-quality alternative to Greenwich Avenue, where rents easily exceed $100 per square foot,” Dunne said in a statement.
Despite the rise of remote work since the beginning of the pandemic, the office market in Greenwich still attracts and retains many companies. In the second quarter of this year, the office availability rate ran at 8.7 percent in the town’s central business district and at 23.1 percent in the rest of town, compared with 27.4 percent in all of Fairfield County, according to CBRE.
CBRE also announced this week the sale of another building for $5.1 million at 1381 E. Putnam Ave., in Old Greenwich. Built in 2016, the building contains four apartments and two retail suites. The retail space is occupied by Club Pilates and Estate Treasures of Greenwich, which is a consignment shop.
Dunne, Langer, Blumenkrantz and two other members of the Institutional Properties Group, David Gavin and Stuart MacKenzie, represented the seller, Marx Realty. CBRE said it also procured the buyer, which is “a private investor based in Stamford,” but it did not disclose the buyer's name.
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MacKenzie said in a statement that, “1381 East Putnam offers stable existing cash flow from long-term retail leases along with highly coveted luxury apartments in one of the most affluent areas in the nation. This transaction is a testament to Greenwich and how it continues to be an extremely desirable location for apartment renters and retailers alike.”
Gavin said in a statement that, “1381 East Putnam Avenue represented a unique opportunity to acquire a recently redeveloped, mixed-use property with stable income in one of the most prestigious markets in the country.”
Sep 15, 2023