Historic Midtown hangout the Friars Membership discovered a stunning purchaser: Gary Barnett’s Extell Improvement.
The six-story membership on 57 East fifty fifth Road went into contract with Extell for $19 million, The Business Observer reported and sources instructed The Actual Deal. Kairos Funding Administration bought the membership, which as soon as counted A-listers like Johnny Carson, Jimmy Fallon and Joan Rivers as members.
Barnett’s bid beat out a hospitality operator, international consulates and a bunch of crypto buyers looking for to show the Friar’s Membership into a personal membership, dubbed the Crypto Fort. Bob Knakal and Tom Brady of BKREA brokered the deal on behalf of Kairos.
However what’s going to Barnett do with the famed social membership?
Extell has been quietly assembling properties on Park Avenue between 54th and fifty fifth Road. Earlier this yr, TRD reported that Extell was underneath contract to accumulate 407–417 Park Avenue and 405 Park Avenue. Barnett has additionally been in talks to accumulate an adjoining workplace constructing at 110 East fifty fifth Road. Extell may construct 527,000 sq. ft of improvement as-of-right on the Park Avenue properties, or as much as 700,000 sq. ft of rentable workplace area with extra air rights, based on advertising and marketing supplies.
Trade hypothesis is that Barnett strategically acquired the Friars Membership so as to add one thing to his assemblage. It’s not apparent what that one thing is.
The Friars Membership’s location is throughout the road from the elements of Barnett’s different proposed acquisitions. Barnett has been narrowly centered on shopping for up a hall round 54th and fifty fifth Road, on the identical block as Central Synagogue. The Friars Membership, nevertheless, sits throughout Park Avenue and one block up fifty fifth, nearer to Madison Avenue.
It’s additionally unclear whether or not the Friars Membership has any air rights left. The Friars Membership bought off 25,000 sq. ft of air rights in 1982. (The Business Observer reported the Friars Membership recaptured 803 ft of transferable air rights in 1992.)
Lastly, the Friars Membership facade is landmarked. It can’t be torn right down to pave approach for a brand new improvement.
If air rights will not be the play, there are three different potentialities.
May Barnett be looking for to construct one thing surrounding the Friars Membership, which is sandwiched between two towers? It appears unlikely for the reason that constructing is landmarked.
The second possibility is Barnett, the person behind one among New York Metropolis’s most energetic improvement companies, merely noticed an opportunity to purchase and renovate the Friars Membership into one thing flashier, akin to a personal residence or one other members-only club.
The third possibility is essentially the most intriguing. The Promote beforehand reported Barnett could possibly be trying to purchase the 54th Road property that homes The Brook, a secretive and elite personal membership. The Brook is adjoining to 405 Park Avenue, a website Barnett is underneath contract for.
The Brook, whose members reportedly included Fred Astaire and John Jacob Astor, would doubtless must be acquired by Extell to ensure that the developer to assemble its subsequent high-rise.
The Brook resides in a century-old constructing at 111 E 54th Road. The five-story constructing’s measurement is just like that of the Friars Membership. But, the Friars Membership is famous for the great thing about its inside, together with its curved wooden staircases and stained glass home windows.
The Promote speculated that Barnett may supply The Friars Membership as a brand new dwelling for The Brook.
The 14,541-square-foot inside of the Friars Membership isn’t landmarked, permitting the brand new proprietor to rework the area. And for $19 million, Barnett would get a steal on the returns he yields from the Park Avenue mega-development he seeks.
No matter Barnett decides to do, it’s going to add a brand new chapter to the historic dwelling of the Friars Membership.
Based in 1904, the membership was well-known for its movie star roasts, however over time turned hounded by monetary challenges. The Friars Membership closed in 2020 amid the pandemic and a flood. In 2023, the membership’s lender Kairos alleged it defaulted on a $13 million mortgage. Greg Corbin’s Northgate Actual Property Group was employed to market a foreclosure public sale. In late 2024, Kairos acquired the property in a $17.2 million credit score bid.
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Gary Barnett in contract to buy major Midtown assemblage
