Famed 23-Story New York Office Building Sells for 97.5% Discount in Online Auction The building was formerly owned by UBS.

By Emily Rella Edited by Melissa Malamut

Key Takeaways

  • A 23-story building in Midtown Manhattan sold in an online auction for $8.5 million.
  • The property, located at 135 West 50th Street, last sold for $332 million in 2006.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Despite many companies issuing return-to-office mandates, the commercial real estate market in big cities like New York remains volatile.

Iconic office towers once valued in the hundreds of millions are taking a major hit. For example, a Midtown Manhattan office building just sold at a 97.5% discount after only receiving one offer, the New York Times reported.

Related: Amazon Is Reportedly Tracking 'Coffee Badging' Workers and Their Real In-Office Hours

A 23-story, 925,000-square-foot building, redesigned by the famed Gensler Architects team, sold for $8.5 million last week. The building last sold in 2006 for a whopping $332 million.

The office building, located at 135 West 50th Street, was built in 1963, and auctioned off by UBS on an auction website called Ten-X. It received just one bid.

"UBS's perspective was, 'We need to sell this quick, we've kind of made peace with this is gonna be a big loss. We need to sell it and we need to move on," Ten-X president Steven Jacobs told The Real Deal in an interview.

Related: Barbara Corcoran Issues Warning on Commercial Real Estate Market

The building has seen a slew of companies call it home over the years, including Zales and Sports Illustrated, though it's now 65% vacant due to the pandemic and companies downsizing on office space.

The building's website boasts floors that range from 12,000 to 63,000 square feet with full-floor blocks that "could serve as a building within a building for the right tenant."

However, the sale of the building does not include the land beneath it, as UBS sold that to Safehold in 2019 for $285 million.

The new owner of the building has not been revealed.

Related: Salesforce Is Cracking Down on In-Office Work

Emily Rella

Senior News Writer

Emily Rella is a Senior News Writer at Entrepreneur.com. Previously, she was an editor at Verizon Media. Her coverage spans features, business, lifestyle, tech, entertainment, and lifestyle. She is a 2015 graduate of Boston College and a Ridgefield, CT native. Find her on Twitter at @EmilyKRella.

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