One of the hungriest players in office’s reset-basis era ™ is finalizing a megadeal in Manhattan: 601W Cos. (principals Mark Karasick, Victor Gerstein, Michael Silberberg, w/ Harry Skydell as the key deal guy) is set to buy the ground lease on 7 Times Square, The Promote understands. Boston Properties (aka BXP) started shopping the 1.2M sf property via Eastdil in May, w/ pricing guidance at ≈700M ($580/ 🦶)

So much to chew on here. Insiders - Read on for the full story at the end of this newsletter 🔒 👇

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With Manhattan office space in such torrid demand, the battle for prime sites is once again getting kinky 🌶 – think about the tear Boston Properties is on at 343 Madison (anchor tenant secured, $1.2B construction loan in), and the drama across the street at 346 starts to make a little more sense.

When SL Green swooped in to buy the Brooks Bros. joint from eyewear scion Claudio del Vecchio for $160M about a year ago, RFR was miffed. The firm (going forward an Aby Rosen & Sons production) alleged that del Vecchio stole its DD and used it to court competing buyers; RFR had likely hoped to combine the site w/ its property next door at 350 Madison and build something truly single-malt ™. SLG, not named in RFR’s suit, continued to do its thing, and by its thing we mean bringing in deep-pocketed global partners to de-risk the enterprise.

But it seems like RFR wasn’t quite ready to let go. The firm, per TRD, went and bought itself a $1M pad at 5 E. 44th St. There is no chance this was for personal use – Aby probably walked in and thought, “where’s the rest??” – but happens to be that SLG had been in talks to buy the building’s unused air rights to add to its 346 assemblage. The condo board stipulates that all owners need to agree to any sales, and RFR is now an owner… The board is set to meet this week to re-jig the bylaws to allow for a supermajority (as opposed to unanimous) deal, but RFR has sued to void its contract w/ SLG. In a rib-tickling statement to TRD, Rosen said: “we believe it would be a great thing for the city for us to join forces and deliver one supertower that is of much greater scale and efficiency.”

The REIT insists these shenanigans won’t impact 346’s development plans and described RFR’s condo suit as “straight out of the Aby Rosen playbook — losing out on a deal and suing everyone in sight.” This is an unusually spicy statement for a publicly traded firm to make, and SLG’s rep (presumably BerlinRosen) would not have issued it w/o the direct blessing of REIT top brass.

See also: Not Easy Being [SL] Green