Rockwood Takes Another Shot at Selling Grand Central Office

Rockwood Capital is headed towards sticker shock at 2 Grand Central Tower after failing to sell the office building in the waning pre–pandemic days.

Rockwood is again on the hunt for a buyer of the office property at 140 East 45th Street near Grand Central Terminal, the Commercial Observer reported. The 667,000-square-foot asset is being marketed by Eastdil Secured’s Gary Phillips and Will Silverman.

Ownership of the 44-story property is looking for a price upwards of $270 million for the building. Rockwood took out a $260 million loan from MetLife to refinance the property in 2018, a debt that remains active today.

Previously, in February 2020 — days before Covid-19 upended the United States — the firm put the building on the market, The Real Deal reported. The private equity investor was expecting to command a price per square foot mark that would put a total sale in the ballpark of $580 million — more than double what it’s expecting a half-decade later.

Rockwood bought the building from Boston Properties in 2011 for $401 million. BXP had acquired it for nearly $428 million in 2008 from Macklowe, who built it in 1981.

Tenants today include Cigna, Nuvo Group, Deerpath Capital and Cortec Group and more, mostly financial, legal and professional services companies. Rockwood’s New York City headquarters are also located in the trophy office tower.

Rockwood has seen the challenging dynamics of today’s office market at play. Last year, Rockwood and Stonebridge sold an office property in Bethesda, Maryland to In-Rel Properties for $29.9 million, a 78 percent drop in value from the 2019 purchase price of $133.8 million.

In the Manhattan office market landscape, only one sale appears to have closed above $200 million this year, the $357 million sale of 2 Park Avenue in January.

— Holden Walter-Warner