Jones Lang LaSalle


$825M DEAL FOR B'WAY TOWER
By LOIS WEISS

May 25, 2006 -- The major Times Square building at 1540 Broadway is in contract to be sold to a combination of Steve Roth's Vornado Realty Trust and Sam Zell's Equity Office Properties for an estimated $825 million.

Sources at the Macklowe party at the GM Building and Apple store last night said Roth's New York-based Real Estate investment trust will have the bottom retail space, including the currently vacant Bar Code restaurant space.

Zell's Chicago-based REIT will take the office portion above. Eastdil Secured marketed the 44-story, 1.1 million-square-foot property on behalf of Paramount Group.

The building, the construction of which helped usher in the Times Square real estate boom, serves as the American headquarters of German media giant Bertelsmann. The famous Times Square Virgin Megastore is the building's retail tenant and is one of the top-selling and largest music stores in the world. It boasts some 600 listening posts, 100 video viewing posts and plays host to in-store appearance of top artists.

Paramount purchased the building from Bertelsmann for $425 million in June 2004.