Bushburg Properties’ impending purchase of empty 60 Wall St. bodes well for Lower Manhattan.
News of the acquisition now in contract, reported by TheReal Deal, raised eyebrows over the lowball $400 million is paying Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC (the former office skyscraper last sold for three times more 10 years ago).
What matters more is that Bushburg, which successfully turned several other downtown office buildings into apartments, will potentially bring the giant, dormant tower back to life the same way — as Rose Associates did when it converted 70 Pine St. 15 years ago.
Bushburg, led by Joseph Hoffman, boasts over $4 billion in total assets. It’s converting nearby 100 William St. and 80 Pine St. into rental units.
Dark since Deutsche Bank moved uptown between 2018 and 2021, the 47-story 60 Wall St., across the street from the Cipriani ballroom, casts a pall over surrounding blocks. A stalled, $250 million modernization plan by Paramount Group, which later was sold to Rithm and managed the job for GIC, failed to excite the office market with the slogan, “Wall Street But Not As You Know It.”
A tour of the tower by Realty Check two years ago revealed column-free floors and stupendous views that were previously known only to employees of Deutsche Bank and the tower’s original owner, JPMorgan Chase.
It wasn’t known how many units can be created at 60 Wall St. The job will be challenging in any case, due to the structure’s large floor plates. “Bushburg faces a lot of planning,” a conversion expert said. He speculated, “They might need to carve a notch into it the way SL Green is doing at 750 Third Ave. uptown in order to create apartment windows.”
Reps for Rithm and Bushburg declined to comment.
Downtown Alliance president Jessica Lappin called Bushberg’s move “a strong vote of confidence in Lower Manhattan. Powered by office market recovery, anchor commercial commitments like American Express at the World Trade Center and robust residential growth, the neighborhood’s dynamic future is clear.”
Bushberg’s purchase comes in the context of a conversion boom that’s seen 5,419 apartments created from mostly older office buildings below Chambers Street in the past 10 years, according to the Alliance.
A CBRE analyst said more than 25 million square feet of Manhattan offices are being repurposed through projects planned or rumored, with downtown accounting for 44% of the total — yielding more than 23,000 units in Lower Manhattan.
Even the city is getting into the act, as the Mamdani administration hopes to add nearly 4,000 apartments by converting 100 Gold St.