CSC Nabs Financing for Another NYC Conversion

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CSC Real Estate has another Manhattan conversion in play, taking up the mantle from David Werner.

The developer landed $108 million in construction financing for the office-to-residential project at 300 East 42nd Street, also referred to as 770 Second Avenue, the Commercial Observer reported. SCALE Lending, an arm of Slate Property Group, provided the debt at the Murray Hill property.

Arrow Real Estate Advisors’ Morris Betesh, Morris Dabbah and Louis Halperin arranged the financing.

CSC is planning to convert 12 of the building’s 18 floors into 140 residential units, 25 percent of which will be affordable and developed under the state’s 467m tax abatement program. The redevelopment will also feature 11,000 square feet of amenities and is scheduled for completion in the first quarter.

CSC bought the property from Werner a year ago, a mere two months after Werner bought the building for $52 million; CSC ultimately paid the same amount in its own acquisition. Werner was said to be in talks with several potential buyers, including a high-net-worth individual from Latin America.

David Werner Real Estate went into contract earlier last year to buy the 235,000-square-foot building from Fortress Investment Group, which took the property back from Keith Rubenstein’s Somerset Partners and Jeffrey Kaplan’s Meadow Partners in 2023. The previous owners had bought the building in 2019 for $122.5 million.

Werner is known for his quick flips, tying up properties and then selling them to his investors, occasionally rolling his profit back into the deal as equity.

In 2024, Werner teamed up with Lloyd Goldman’s BLDG to buy the office building at 100 Wall Street for $115 million, a deep discount to the $270 million the seller Barings paid in 2015. It’s one of several office-to-resi conversions Werner is pursuing.

CSC is no novice in the conversion conversation. Last year, the company acquired the 178,000-square-foot assemblage at 75 Maiden Lane and 13 Gold Street in Lower Manhattan for $45.2 million, harboring a conversion dream. CSC is also working on a hotel-to-apartment conversion of the Hudson Hotel at 353 West 57th Street.

Separately, a limited liability company tied to Moses Mizrahi paid $22 million last week for the 52,000-square-foot space that spans the cellar to the 10th floor of 300 East 42nd.

— Holden Walter-Warner