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The managing owner of the Platinum Mile office buildings straddling I-287 has taken a new name and is about to take on a new partner for its office campuses in Westchester County.
A newcomer to Westchester”™s commercial office market, Normandy Real Estate Partners of Morristown, N.J., will take over day-to-day management of the 14-building, approximately 1.6 million-square-foot Platinum Mile portfolio from RXR Realty L.L.C., the former RexCorp Realty L.L.C., according to an informed real estate market source. The private New Jersey real estate investment company also will have a stake in Tarrytown Corporate Center, the seven-building, approximately 975,000-square-foot complex on Route 119 in Greenburgh. RXR Realty will continue to manage that property.
RXR already has an unnamed Dutch pension fund as a partner in its Westchester properties. It is waiting lender consent to take on Normandy as a third partner. That approval was expected to come soon, as workers last week began replacing RXR”™s name and logo with the Normandy company”™s at some Platinum Mile buildings. On the Normandy company”™s Web site, the Platinum Mile properties in Purchase, Harrison and White Plains last week were added to its office portfolio listings.
At Tarrytown Corporate Center, Normandy will be a shareholder in the Reckson New York Property Trust, a publicly traded company on the Australian stock exchange that is RXR”™s ownership arm for that office park. The Australian company also owns RXR”™s third Westchester office property, a two-building, 134,000-square-foot complex on Grasslands Road in Elmsford. Scott Rechler is CEO and chairman of both RXR Realty L.L.C. and RNY Australia Management Ltd.
A source familiar with the deal said RXR”™s interest in bringing in a third partner dated to its $2 billion purchase of the Westchester properties in early 2006, when then-RexCorp was formed by former managers and employees of Reckson Associates Realty Corp. after that publicly traded company’s $6 billion purchase by SL Green Realty Corp. The real estate source said Normandy took part in negotiations with SL Green.
RXR last year completed a $20-million repositioning of its Platinum Mile portfolio, where the current occupancy rate is 63 percent. Normandy”™s new management was wanted to spark changes and push leasing activity, the source said. The Platinum Mile”™s new leasing agent is Newmark Knight Frank, led by Brian J. Carcaterra, managing director in the real estate services company”™s Greenwich, Conn. office.
“This is a substantial investment,” said a spokesman for Normandy Real Estate Partners, “and as a part of that they”™re assuming management of the Platinum Mile.”
Normandy Real Estate Partners also has offices in Boston, New York City and Washington, D.C. In the last 12 years, the company has invested $1.1 billion of equity representing more than $5 billion in asset value.
With office, hotel, residential, flex/industrial and development properties in the metropolitan Boston and Washington areas and the New York tri-state region, the company in 2008 reported approximately 1 million square feet of lease transactions with aggregate leasing totaling $122 million. In the tri-state region, occupancy levels increased 2.6 percent from 2007 and Normandy leased more than 352,500 square feet, adding $33 million to lease revenues for the year.
The partnership with RXR is Normandy”™s only commercial office venture in Westchester County. In 2007, the company was a joint-venture partner of Westport, Conn.-based Northview Hotel Group L.L.C. in the approximately $65-million purchase of the Westchester Marriott Hotel from Morgan Stanley. The 444-room hotel in the town of Greenburgh adjoins RXR”™s Tarrytown Corporate Center. Normandy”™s tri-state office portfolio also includes Darien Green, a fully occupied two-building, 81,000-square-foot, class-A office park on Boston Post Road in Darien, Conn.
At RXR Realty, the company”™s renaming from RexCorp, a “simplification,” began about one year ago in some online and advertising venues, though it was only completed recently, CEO Scott Rechler said. “It”™s just more brand identity,” he said. “We thought it would stand out more” for the company”™s various business ventures.
RXR Realty in 2008 did about 250,000 square feet of new and renewed leasing transactions in its Westchester-Connecticut market, a company official said.
