David Werner is in contract to pick up 311 West 43rd Street in Hell’s Kitchen for slightly more than $40 million - roughly one third of what the building traded for in 2018. The 14-story Press Building, totaling about 193,000 square feet on the edge of Times Square, would be the latest score in Werner’s streak of snapping up Manhattan office properties at steep discounts.
According to The Real Deal, the deal was arranged by a CBRE team led by Doug Middleton and Ariel Aber and is in contract for "slightly more than $40 million," per unnamed sources. That figure comes in at about a third of the roughly $131 million DivcoWest paid for the property in late 2018. Representatives for both Werner and DivcoWest did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Werner's conversion playbook
Werner has built a reputation on buying distressed or discounted office buildings and then either repositioning them or handing them off to residential investors. The Gensler project page for the Metro Loft conversion lists Metro Loft and David Werner Real Estate Investments as development partners on the massive office-to-residential overhaul of the former Pfizer headquarters, which is being turned into more than 1,600 apartments. That kind of scale shows the type of deals Werner gravitates toward, and industry insiders say it makes a residential conversion at 311 West 43rd Street a very plausible next move.
Building history and price swing
The Press Building at 311 West 43rd Street is described by DivcoWest as a 193,000-square-foot, 14-story office property. City sales records show DivcoWest paid about $131.25 million for the building in December 2018, so Werner’s contract price represents a dramatic markdown from that cycle’s peak. The gulf between those numbers underscores how sharply Manhattan office values have shifted since 2018.
WeWork left an imprint
A sizable portion of the building was leased to WeWork for years, and the coworking giant vacated the space in 2023, leaving behind a large vacancy that proved difficult to refill, Bisnow reported. DivcoWest sued WeWork in 2023 for roughly $30 million in allegedly unpaid rent, then later dropped the claim. Those headaches - along with the broader challenge of backfilling big, former coworking floors - go a long way toward explaining why the building is now trading at such a steep discount.
What this signals for Hell’s Kitchen
If the deal closes and Werner moves to convert or flip the property, it would be one more data point in a growing wave of office-to-residential moves that are reshaping Midtown and nearby neighborhoods. Design firms and developers point to projects like the Pfizer headquarters conversion as proof that large office blocks near major transit can be turned into housing at scale, according to Gensler. For Hell’s Kitchen, that could translate into more apartments - and more construction - on the blocks between Eighth and Ninth avenues.
For now, the sale is still in contract and no closing has been recorded publicly. The Real Deal has reported the brokerage lineup and noted that neither party has issued a statement. If Werner sticks to his usual playbook, the Hell’s Kitchen buy could end up as a residential conversion or a flip to another investor, continuing the pattern that has helped reset Manhattan office pricing over the past two years.
