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March 28, 2007 RFR Holding, owner of more than 20 Manhattan office buildings, has a contract to buy the Stamford portfolio, Brown said. The deal is expected to close late this spring, he said. "This is an opportunistic buy," Brown said. "Stamford is an extension of New York and we like the potential of the Stamford (office) market." He cited below-market rents, proximity to the Stamford train station and the presence of financial giants such as UBS AG and Royal Bank of Scotland as reasons for the purchase. The buildings are Canterbury Green, 177 Broad St., 300 Atlantic St. and the four buildings in the Stamford Plaza office complex on Tresser Boulevard that stretches from the Stamford Marriott Hotel to Elm Street. Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy yesterday reiterated the city's plans to seek a delay in the property tax revaluation because of the pending sale to RFR Holding. "It is clear that commercial property values have gone up dramatically and that should be reflected in the revaluation," Malloy said. Malloy said Monday that he planned to ask the state to waive the penalty for opting out of the 2006 property revaluation. The city stands to lose nearly $1.5 million in state aid if the higher assessments are not used for the July tax bills. Board of Finance Chairwoman Mary Lou Rinaldi last week asked Malloy to request a delay. The timing of the revaluation hurts homeowners because it caught commercial values in a slump and residential values at their peak, she said. Rinaldi wants to throw out the 2006 revaluation -- actually the 2003 revaluation postponed by three years -- and do another as of Oct. 1, when commercial values will be higher. Blackstone Group of New York City will sell the Stamford buildings that it acquired from Equity Office Properties Trust last month. Blackstone Group, a privately owned leveraged buyout firm, bought Equity Office Properties of Chicago for $39 billion in the largest buyout in history. Blackstone plans to convert to a publicly traded company. The Stamford buildings total about 1.7 million square feet. Tenants include envelope maker and commercial printer Cenveo Inc., Cushman & Wakefield Inc. and CB Richard Ellis commercial real estate firms, publisher Boardroom Inc., and Hexcel Corp., a manufacturer of structural materials. New or existing tenants who renew leases should expect to pay higher rents because RFR Holding wants to justify its investment, real estate executives in lower Fairfield County said. Landlords at comparable properties will want to raise rents, too, they said. "We are going to raise rents to where the market is," Brown said. "We are a good and fair landlord. We have a good reputation, and tenants love us." The average asking rent for Class A office space in downtown Stamford is $37.75 per square foot, according to CB Richard Ellis. Stamford's office rents could rise 15 percent to 25 percent because of the RFR deal, said John Goodkind, managing principal at the Greenwich office of Newmark Knight Frank commercial real estate, based in New York City. "This will accelerate a market that is already moving up," Goodkind said. "They are a firstrate owner that knows quality real estate." RFR Holding, headed by contemporary art collector Aby Rosen and his partner, Michael Fuchs, owns buildings on Park, Fifth, Lexington and Madison avenues, Herald Square and other prestigious New York City addresses. "RFR is a well-known owner of trophy office properties in Manhattan," said Robert Gillon, president of Signature Group commercial real estate in Darien. "They have acquired a great portfolio of office buildings in a very active market in Stamford. As New York City rents escalate above $100 a square foot, Stamford will benefit in price and occupancy." Greenwich office rents also will rise, said Joseph Beninati, co-founder and managing partner of Antares Investment Partners, a commercial and residential real estate developer with offices in Stamford and Greenwich. That is because Greenwich landlords who used to drop office rents to keep their tenants from moving to Stamford will not have to reduce them as much, Beninati said. "The price of buildings and office leases in Stamford have been offered at a discount, and we are getting to a point where these prices are getting normalized," said Jim Fagan, senior managing director of the Connecticut and Westchester County, N.Y., operations of Cushman & Wakefield.
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