Cushman & Wakefield Facilitates $120M Condo Interest Sale of Manhattan's 375 Pearl St.

3 Aug, 2011, New York

Sabey Data Center Properties has acquired a principal condominium interest encompassing 29 floors of the 32-story building at Manhattan's 375 Pearl Street, commonly known as the Verizon Building, for $120 million. Sabey was represented in the transaction by Sean Brady of the East Rutherford, N.J. office of Cushman & Wakefield, Inc., and Jeffrey Heller of the firm's Midtown New York office. Youngwoo & Associates, Sabey's local partner, was represented by Ron Solarz of Eastern Consolidated. Sellers M&T Bank and Taconic Investment Partners were represented by C.B. Richard Ellis.

"The importance of this transaction is three-fold," said Brady, a senior director and Co-Founder of the Data Center Advisory Group of Cushman & Wakefield. "It will be Manhattan's first and only special purpose redevelopment of an existing building into a secure data center property. It is a prime example of the ongoing resurgence of Lower Manhattan in the wake of the recent economic downturn as well as the events of a decade ago. It is also a transaction that expands the influence and reach of one of the country's major providers of state-of-the-art data centers. Sabey's impact on this marketplace, as a technological service provider, cannot be understated."

Verizon, which completed and opened the 1.1 million-square-foot tower in 1975 and subsequently utilized the site as a switching center, will continue to own and occupy three floors of the landmark tower, which is located at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Previously, 375 Pearl Street had been targeted for conversion to residential and office use, but Sabey recognized this building as a data center building because of the heavy floor loads, great access to connectivity and close proximity to the financial district.

The Seattle, Wash.-based Sabey, which obtained financing from National Real Estate Advisors to complete the acquisition, will now transform the asset into a data processing center known as Intergate.Manhattan. Designed and constructed to accommodate heavy machinery, 375 Pearl Street features easy access to multiple fiber providers and high-voltage power for lower power costs to end users.

For Sabey, the site will be that company's first data center on the East Coast. The company has announced plans to boost the building's electrical capacity to 40 megawatts of power when the conversion is completed in 2012. Target users include financial, medical, healthcare and technology research businesses.

"Sitting at the confluence of the world's transatlantic cable and fiber routes, Intergate.Manhattan will be a crucial presence as our data center network continues to expand," said John Sabey, president of Sabey Data Center Properties. "We are delighted to be able to provide an essential service in a resurgent Lower Manhattan and to be part of its ascendance as a world capital for data-based enterprises."

The Cushman & Wakefield International Data Center Advisory Group has 24 transaction experts in the U.S. and five overseas in the major markets. The group manages in-house more than 20 million square feet of mission critical space of which 9 million is raised floor. Miles Loo is one of the top data center appraisers in the country, and because of the group's vast experiences, a team can be assembled for jobs across the U.S. and abroad.

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