The Flatiron returns to the market for the second time in less than a month: the iconic "iron" that was the first to "scratch the sky" before Chrysler and the Empire State Building were even built will be auctioned again later that the initial buyer Jacob Garlick did not show up with the 10 percent down payment on the agreed amount of 190 million dollars.
The offer from Garlick, a hitherto unknown real estate developer, had appeared too high to the current owners - Jeff Gural of GFT Real Estate, Newmark, ABS Real Estate Partners, and the Italian group Sorgente - who through the auction hoped to get rid of the fifth partner, Nathan Silverstein, who holds the remaining 25%.
After the initial flop, Gural and associates decided not to take advantage of the option to take over the purchase for a figure slightly lower than 190 million - that of their last bet before being displaced by the latest arrival - thus paving the way for the second Sale: "We're hoping to pay a lot less," the builder told Crain's magazine.
Matthew Mannion, who oversaw the first auction, speculated that anyone showing up now puts down a million dollar deposit just for the privilege of being able to bid: "We want to avoid another fiasco," Gural agreed.
The date for the second auction won't be for a couple of months, Mannion said.
The first sale in March was ordered by a New York State Supreme Court judge after years of unresolved arguments about what to do with the building.
The Flatiron, a city monument since 1966, is one of Manhattan's historic skyscrapers.
For New York City in 1902, the year it was completed, it represented the essence of modernity.
Known for having been the 'skinniest' of New York's towers before the Manhattan skyline was transformed by the very tall and super-thin buildings that shade Central Park, the skyscraper owes its shape to its location: at the intersection of Fifth and 23rd Streets, right where Broadway, one of the island's few diagonal thoroughfares, runs from West to East Manhattan.
The building has been empty since 2019, when the British publishing house Macmillan, which occupied it entirely, decided to leave.
Two years later Gural and associates sued Silverstein claiming that his decisions (or no decisions) had meant that the building remained deserted.
The latter in turn sued Newmark for attempting to lease the "iron" to Knotel, a flexible office company, below market price.
