BY AL BARBARINO

Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm CIM Group has closed on its purchase of the retail portion of 225 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District for more than $78 million, city records show. 

  The retail property consists of two parcels totaling 40,079 square feet and is currently 100 percent leased to a number of long-term tenants including JP Morgan Chase, 24 Hour Fitness, Verizon Wireless, and United States Postal Service. The spaces feature 15-foot ceilings on the ground floor and approximately 200 feet of pedestrian frontage along Fifth Avenue, including two prime corner retail spaces.

  A 12-story, 192-unit luxury residential condominium building, the landmarked The Grand Madison, sits atop the retail space, and the property overlooks the north end of Madison Square Park in the center of the Flatiron District. 

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BY BILLY GRAY

Sweets maker Jacques Torres signed a 10-year lease for a 39,500-square-foot chocolate factory at 140 58th Street, inside the Brooklyn Army Terminal.

It will be a return to Brooklyn for the chocolatier, which opened its first workshop in 2000 in Dumbo, presaging that neighborhood's transformation into the Kings Count version of Soho and the borough's addiction for all things handmade by armies of artisans.

Roberto Camacho of Buchbinder & Warren Realty Group LLC represented the tenant. Sharone Levy and Guy Solomonov of Greiner-Maltz Company Of New York, Inc. represented the landlord.

Asking rents were $6 per square foot. Other tenants in the Brooklyn Army Terminal--a 97-acre complex including two immense eight-story buildings totaling 4.1 million square feet--include the sustainable furniture line Urban Green, street art collective Chashama driving shoe specialist Marc Joseph NY, Inc.

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BY KARSTEN STRAUSS

  If the location of the six-story, elevatored office building at 4 East 46th Street wasn’t enough to pique the interest of a developer on the prowl for Midtown property, the fact that it will be delivered to a buyer vacant might.

Should that fail, the possibility of controlling more than 30,000 square feet of air rights--or undergoing a transformative expansion--would probably do the trick. The asking price for 4 East 46th Street is $21 million.

  The building--held by a private owner, Ed Friedman--is 16,115 total square feet but comes with 30,000 square feet of air rights, for a potential 45,000+ square feet FAR after expansion. Eastern Consolidated Principal David Schechtman and Associate Director Steven Zimmerman, who are marketing the property, believe the best use of the air rights is through expansion.

“This building is only six-and-a-half stories and it lives in a sea of buildings that are much taller,” Mr. Schechtman said.

  Should a buyer decline to expand into the sky, those air rights could be worth a minimum of $400 to $500 per square foot to a receiver, he said.

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BY MICHAEL EWING

Join REIN for
a cocktail fund-raiser to benefit the Alzheimer’s Association at
the Hudson Bond in Midtown. REIN NY Cocktails and Networking, the Hudson Bond, 215 West 40th Street; 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., con- tact Ruanna Sakols at (347) 292-7356 or rsakols@reinny. com for more info.

Grab your laptop and head to
Washington, D.C.,
for a course in which you will examine case studies to gain hands-on experience of deal structures and industry data. The classes focus on the lender’s perspective, the equity investor’s perspective and dynamic cash flow analysis. Real Estate Finance II: Income Pro Forma, Equity Returns, and Multi-Period Financial Analysis conference, 1025 Thomas Jefferson Street NW, Suite 500 West, Washington, D.C.; Jan. 30 through Feb. 1, contact David Mulvihill at (202) 624-7122 or dmulvihill@uli. org, or visit uli.org for more info.

What are the pros and cons of using direct capitalization versus discounted cash flow? If you don’t know, why not do yourself a favor and fly out to
the University of Colorado at Boulder for a course taught
by Thomas Thibodeau on valuation methodologies?Required Rates of Return
and Capitalization Rates, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colo.; 12 p.m. to 2 p.m., visit naiop.org for more info.