Downtown Stamford office building sells for $24 million
“We expect ... employers are going to be looking to hire those people who have moved to Stamford and offer them more flexibility in where they work.”
STAMFORD — The downtown office tower at 1055 Washington Blvd. has been sold for $24 million in a “leasehold” deal as SL Green Realty Corp. continues to reduce its Stamford commercial real estate portfolio.
Rye Brook, N.Y.-based commercial-property manager RPW Group acquired 1055 Washington from
Manhattan-based SL Green. The 183,000-squarefoot property stands next to the Trump Parc condominium building and overlooks Mill River Park.
About 80 percent leased, the 10-floor edifice houses a number of tenants, including Hearst Connecticut Media’s Stamford Advocate.
The acquisition adds the first Connecticut property to the RPW portfolio,
RPW Executive VP Andrew Weisz
which also includes nine buildings in Westchester County, N.Y., as well as 275 Madison Ave., in midtown Manhattan.
“In the past three years, we’ve been focused on expanding our real estate footprint throughout the tristate area, and Stamford was a focus for us,” RPW Executive Vice President Andrew Weisz said in an interview. “1055 presented a great opportunity for us to enter the Stamford market. It’s a terrific building, it’s got curb appeal and a terrific location. The infrastructure is excellent. and the tenant roster is very strong. It checked a lot of the boxes.”
A message left Monday for SL Green was not immediately returned.
Through the leasehold structure, the building’s tenants will make lease payments to RPW, just as they did to SL Green. RPW will then make payments to the “fee owner,” which owns the underlying land at 1055 Washington.
RPW plans to make a number of capital improvements, including lobby upgrades, cafeteria renovations, installation of new elevator-mechanical systems and construction of new offices within vacant space.
The firm could eventually make other acquisitions in Connecticut, according to Weisz.
“We were already seeing a residential migration from denser areas like Manhattan to suburbs — particularly Westchester and Stamford — and COVID has accelerated that,” he said. “We expect that in the coming years employers are going to be looking to hire those people who have moved to Stamford and offer them more flexibility in where they work.”
A team of commercial
real estate giant CBRE’s Institutional Properties Group — including Jeff Dunne, Steven Bardsley, Jeremy Neuer, David Gavin, Gene Pride and Travis Langer — represented SL Green in the sale. The team also secured RPW as the buyer.
“The quality and premier location make 1055 Washington Blvd. an ideal entry for the RPW Group into the Stamford market, allowing RPW to transfer their operational expertise from their significant Westchester holdings,” CBRE Vice Chairman Jeff Dunne said in a statement.
Describing itself as Manhattan’s largest office landlord, SL Green has significantly reduced its presence in Stamford in the past few years, as it focuses even more on its New York City assets.
As an S&P 500-listed company, SL Green operates as a real estate investment trust focused on acquiring, managing and “maximizing value” of Manhattan commercial properties, according to its website. As of Sept. 30, it held interests in 93 buildings totaling slightly more than 40 million square feet. The total included ownership interests in about 29 million square feet of Manhattan buildings.
Last year, SL Green sold the office building at 1010 Washington Blvd. for about $23 million.
In Stamford’s largest property sale of 2017, it sold the Stamford Towers complex at 680 and 750 Washington Blvd. for about $97 million.
SL Green’s sole remaining property in the city and state is Landmark Square, an 815,000-square-foot complex in the downtown that includes an office tower, the Landmark 9 movie theater and restaurant and retail space.