[NYguy]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/05/the-endgame-approaches-for-kushners-looming-tower


BY WILLIAM D. COHAN
MAY 1, 2018

The Kushners also reportedly have another scheme up their sleeves. They have made a highly unusual $250 million offer to buy the 26-unit co-op apartment building at 417 Park Avenue—the only co-op on Park Avenue between 57th Street and Grand Central in an area replete with office towers—from its shareholders, the people who own apartments in the building. The Kushners’ offer would value each of the co-ops at around $9 million. Their idea, presumably, would be to then raze the building and erect a new office tower on the site, in keeping with the city’s new re-zoning of the neighborhood to allow much taller office buildings than currently exist. (A few blocks further south, JPMorgan Chase will be tearing down its 52-story headquarters and replacing it with a new 70-story office tower.)

Normally, the sale of a co-op is hard to effect, since 100 percent of the owners have to approve the deal—my Wall Street sources say they have never heard of such a thing happening. But 417 Park, for some reason, reportedly only requires approval of two-thirds of the co-op owners; some 80 percent have already said they would support the Kushners’ offer. (The Macklowe family, another New York City real-estate titan, has also made an offer for 417 Park.) One influential real-estate magnate conceded that the move seemed rather clever.