Not satisfied with a 200,000-square-foot lease, Weill Cornell Medicine is returning to the former Sotheby’s headquarters on the Upper East Side for the whole enchilada.
The medical institution purchased the property at 1334 York Avenue from the auction house for $510 million, Bloomberg reported. The deal for the 500,000-square-foot property breaks down to $1,020 per square foot.
The sale comes two years after Weill Cornell agreed to lease 40 percent of the building from Sotheby’s. The space was due to be split between dry lab space for computational research and wet lab space for drug, chemical and biological research, alongside conference rooms and workspaces; Weill Cornell wasn’t due to occupy its space until this year.
Sotheby’s is leasing back four floors from Weill Cornell, according to ARTnews. The auction house intends to use proceeds from the sale to reduce debt and invest in its core business, as well as renovate the space it’s hanging onto on York Avenue.
In a statement, Weill Cornell said the acquisition was “materially the same net cost as leasing.”
JLL’s David Giancola, Geoff Goldstein and Steve Klein represented Weill Cornell in the transaction, while CBRE’s Doug Middleton and Mary Ann Tighe represented Sotheby’s.
As for Sotheby’s, it’s been planning to make the move to the landmark Breuer Building at 945 Madison Avenue after purchasing it from the Whitney Museum of American Art for $100 million in the spring of 2023. The space will include an auction house and exhibitions when Sotheby’s officially relocates next month.
In 2020, Sotheby’s closed on a $483 million, five-year, floating-rate loan from Barclays for the York Avenue property, retiring previous debt on the asset, including a $252 million BNP Paribas loan from October 2019.
The building has housed Sotheby’s since 1980 and saw a $55 million expansion and redesign in 2019.
— Holden Walter-Warner
