JPMorgan Said to Drop Effort to Sell Chase Plaza in Manhattan

JPMorgan Said to Drop Effort to Sell Chase Plaza in Manhattan


Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped its effort to sell the landmark lower Manhattan office tower, One Chase Manhattan Plaza, after receiving insufficient bids, according to a person familiar with the offering.

The 60-story skyscraper, built by former Chase Manhattan Bank Chairman David Rockefeller, was one of 23 U.S. office properties JPMorgan Chase was trying to sell. The remaining properties are still for sale, said the person, who declined to be identified because the process is confidential.

Manhattan office buildings have lost almost 47 percent of their value since peaking in 2007, the most of any major U.S. city, according to data from Concord Group, a Newport Beach, California-based consulting firm. Scarce credit and the recession are pushing up vacancy rates, allowing rents to decline and putting pressure on holders of commercial mortgages, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said in a Sept. 30 report.

JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank by market capitalization, is seeking to sell buildings to pare its real estate holdings. HSBC Holdings Plc on Oct. 4 said it planned to sell and lease back its New York headquarters for $330 million to an Israeli businessman.

American International Group Inc.’s headquarters buildings at 70 Pine and 72 Wall streets, within a block of Chase Manhattan Plaza, were sold in August for $150 million, or $105 a square foot.

No Financing

JPMorgan will continue to consider offers for Chase Plaza, the person said. Formal bids were received last month.

The bank hasn’t been willing to provide prospective buyers financing for the transaction, the person said. Most commercial sales of more than $100 million this year have either been financed by sellers or were bought with cash.

Gary Gordon, a managing director at Los Angeles-based Houlihan Lokey, the broker for the building, referred a call for comment to JPMorgan. Bank officials declined to comment.

JPMorgan is also trying to sell Four New York Plaza, a 22- story, 999,000 square-foot tower on Water Street, about seven blocks south of Chase Manhattan Plaza.

Last month the bank sold the former Washington Mutual Inc. headquarters tower in downtown Seattle, to Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. for an undisclosed price.

One Chase Manhattan Plaza, designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and completed in 1961, was designated a city landmark in February. In a report on the tower, the city Landmarks Commission said the building “did lay the groundwork for a downtown renaissance in the 1960s.”

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