Namdar Realty Group has purchased the leasehold at 71 Fifth Avenue for $62 million, picking up an 11-story Class B office and retail building that sits right at the border of Manhattan's Flatiron and Union Square neighborhoods. The deal covers the entirety of the building at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 15th Street, and it closed after years of the property quietly sitting on the market.
According to Commercial Observer, the seller was a joint venture between Madison Capital and Lubert-Adler Partners, which began marketing its leasehold interest in the building back in 2021. Market sources told the outlet at the time that the sale could net as much as $150 million — more than double the price Namdar ultimately paid. The transaction was finalized on October 22, according to Traded, which first reported the sale.
Meridian Capital Group facilitated the deal through brokers Helen Hwang, David Schechtman, Brian Szczapa and Ian Shoenfeld. Szczapa told the outlet that Namdar now holds roughly 90 years remaining on the leasehold term. Namdar Realty Group is led by Igal Namdar. Samco Properties and the family of Mark Lapidus own the land underneath the property; Lapidus formerly served as WeWork's global real estate chief.
A Building Already Stacked With Tech Tenants
Tenants at 71 Fifth Avenue include WeWork, Dutch payment company Adyen, and artificial intelligence video-editing startup Captions. Adyen signed a 30,415-square-foot office lease at the building, taking the entire 10th and 11th floors — 15,177 and 15,238 square feet, respectively — according to REBusinessOnline. Captions, meanwhile, signed for 15,202 square feet across the entire sixth floor, a deal that Mann Report says came through Madison Capital's ownership.
That Captions lease was signed at an asking rent of $85 per square foot over a three-year term, and it doubled the company's previous footprint in SoHo, per Traded. WeWork's presence at the building dates back further: the coworking giant signed for 45,000 square feet across four floors in June 2018, a footprint that later expanded to 73,000 square feet, according to otdowntown.com. An unnamed artificial intelligence company also secured a roughly 30,000-square-foot off-market lease in the building, Commercial Observer reported earlier in October, citing sources familiar with the deal.
Retail Space Still Has Room, Building Still Has History
On the ground floor, retail space is partially occupied by City National Bank, while another unit remains vacant. The building's own website still advertises one full-floor availability spanning 15,227 square feet, the Commercial Observer report notes. Namdar Realty Group, Madison Capital and Lubert-Adler Partners did not respond to requests for comment on the sale.
The building's ownership history traces back to Madison Capital's 2016 acquisition of the leasehold, when the firm agreed to pay nearly $85 million upfront for the fully leased building along with $3.5 million in annual rent, according to the same Commercial Observer reporting. Other outlets have offered differing timelines for that purchase — otdowntown.com also cites a 2016 acquisition for $85 million, while Mann Report references Madison Capital acquiring the property in 2017 — and the discrepancy has not been resolved in available reporting.
A Soft Quarter for Manhattan Office Deals
The 71 Fifth Avenue trade lands amid a bumpy stretch for Manhattan investment sales. Borough-wide sales volume fell 27 percent in the third quarter of 2026, totaling $2.5 billion, per Commercial Observer's quarterly market data. Still, deal count climbed 22 percent year over year through the first three quarters, reaching 273 sales, and year-to-date dollar volume edged up 4 percent over 2025 to $9.61 billion.
Citywide, sales volume across New York City rose 13 percent through the first three quarters of the year, reaching $16.2 billion. Office assets accounted for nearly half of Manhattan's third-quarter dollar volume despite a 23 percent drop from the spring, while multifamily properties outperformed, with year-to-date dollar volume up 74 percent and average prices per square foot climbing 34 percent from the prior year. Development sales, by contrast, slowed, falling 17 percent year to date and 54 percent over the quarter compared with 2025 benchmarks.
Leasing activity, meanwhile, has held up better than the investment-sales side of the market. Manhattan office leasing has totaled 31.1 million square feet across 3,860 leases through October, according to bizjournals.com, compared with 29.9 million square feet during the same stretch in 2019 — a sign that demand for office space in buildings like 71 Fifth Avenue hasn't disappeared, even as big-ticket sales slow down.
