(Bloomberg) -- Ivanhoe Cambridge, the real estate arm of Canadian pension fund Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec, is in talks to buy the former headquarters of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in lower Manhattan, according to a person with knowledge of the transaction.
The firm is close to acquiring 85 Broad St. for about $650 million, said the person, who asked not to be identified because terms aren't final. A joint venture of MetLife Inc. and Beacon Capital Partners is the current owner of the 32-story skyscraper.
85 Broad St.
Representatives for Ivanhoe Cambridge, MetLife and Beacon Capital declined to comment. The sellers are represented by brokerage Eastdil Secured, which also declined to comment.
The building, which Goldman Sachs had built for itself in the 1980s, sat half-empty for several years after the company left for its current spot at 200 West St. in 2010. It's now 87 percent occupied, with tenants including Oppenheimer & Co., WeWork Cos., Nielsen and Vox Media Inc.
A sale of 85 Broad would provide a reference point for wary real estate investors as rising interest rates threaten to erode values that jumped to records after the last decade's crash. Purchases of U.S. commercial properties fell 31 percent in February from a year earlier, the third consecutive month of double-digit declines, according to research firm Real Capital Analytics Inc.
The Manhattan market, the epicenter of the recent real estate boom, got a boost last month when Chinese conglomerate HNA Group Co. agreed to buy 245 Park Ave. for $2.21 billion, one of the highest prices ever paid for a New York skyscraper. Values for prime office towers in big cities have surged 85 percent in the past five years, according to an index from Real Capital and Moody's Investors Service. Those gains have leveled off in recent months.
To contact the reporter on this story: Sarah Mulholland in New York at smulholland3@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Taub at dtaub@bloomberg.net, Christine Maurus
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