A 12-story office and retail building at the corner of Lafayette and Howard streets in SoHo has new ownership. Shorenstein Properties announced it has acquired 148 Lafayette Street from Tishman Speyer, a fully leased boutique property that counts General Catalyst, Graphite, WeWork, Keystone Strategy and Charlotte Tilbury among its tenants.
Shorenstein disclosed the acquisition in a release reported by prnewswire.com, which described the building as a Class A office and retail property with an additional penthouse level that was recently renovated. The sale price has been reported with some variation: Commercial Observer put the figure at $132.5 million, or $866 per square foot, while Globest rounded the transaction to $133 million.
Property size has also been described differently across reports. Shorenstein's own release characterized the building as roughly 154,000 square feet, while other accounts cite 153,000 square feet overall, split between 141,359 square feet of office space and 13,454 square feet of retail, according to Commercial Observer's reporting. That retail component, the outlet noted, is fully leased to martial arts gym Five Points Academy and discount luxury retailer 260 Sample Sale.
A Fast Turnaround Since Tishman Speyer's Purchase
The sale caps a short and lucrative hold for Tishman Speyer, which had acquired the building from EPIC for $105.5 million, according to irei.com. The timing of that purchase is itself disputed in the record — Commercial Observer reported the deal closed in May 2025, while bizjournals.com placed it in June 2025. Based on the reported sale price of $132.5 million and Tishman Speyer's $105.5 million purchase price, the sale was approximately 25.6% higher.
That earlier acquisition had been partially financed with a $68.3 million debt facility from Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies, per the same Real Assets Ipe report. Commercial Observer also reported that Shorenstein outbid several institutional bidders, including private equity funds, to land the property this time around.
A Rapidly Filled Rent Roll
What made 148 Lafayette Street attractive wasn't just its SoHo address — it was how quickly the building filled up. Shorenstein's release noted that approximately 70% of the current rent roll had been signed since January 2025, with tenants committing to an average remaining lease term of roughly nine years. The transaction also marks the final investment in Shorenstein Realty Investors Fourteen, according to the prnewswire.com release.
Shorenstein pointed to SoHo's broader draw for the deal rationale. The firm said the neighborhood's appeal to technology and venture capital firms, combined with a limited supply of high-quality office space, makes it an attractive submarket for investment and future growth, according to Real Assets Ipe. Shorenstein added that it sees an opportunity to build on the property's recent leasing momentum through active asset management, per the same report.
Part of a Broader Buying Spree
148 Lafayette Street is not an isolated bet. Since June 2024, Shorenstein has acquired 14 office properties totaling approximately $2 billion, and the firm said that portfolio was producing an average distribution yield of 8% as of September 2026, according to its release.
The deal also lands amid a mixed moment for Manhattan's investment-sales market. Commercial Observer reported that Manhattan investment-sales volume fell 27% in the third quarter of 2026, totaling $2.5 billion, even as deal count rose 22% annually to reach 273 sales through the first three quarters of the year. Year-to-date dollar volume reached $9.61 billion, up 4% from 2025, with office assets accounting for nearly half of the third quarter's dollar volume despite a 23% decline from the spring, per the outlet's analysis.
Property records and document images for transactions like this one can be searched through New York City's Automated City Register Information System, which covers Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn going back to 1966, according to nyc.gov.
