Dhe Flatiron Building owes its name to its distinctive triangular shape, reminiscent of an iron. The City of New York and the United States have listed it as a historical monument. But it has been empty since 2019. At that time, the book publisher Macmillan, which had been the sole tenant for many years, moved out. Since then, the building, which is almost 87 meters high, has been renovated.
Now the Flatiron Building may be up for sale. On Wednesday, the New York auction house Mannion will start an auction of the historic building. There is no official information as to how high the starting bid should be. It will be a public auction, anyone can bid. However, it is quite possible that the ownership structure will not change too much. Because the previous majority owners, a group of four real estate companies, have signaled that they want to bid.
The fact that the auction takes place at all has to do with a dispute between the previous owners. On the one hand there are the four real estate companies, which together hold a stake of 75 percent: the New York companies Newmark, GFP and ABS and the Italian Sorgente Group. On the other side is attorney and real estate investor Nathan Silverstein, who owns 25 percent. After Macmillan’s move, there was disagreement about the future strategy, which led to a deadlock because the previous structure gave all owners veto rights on major decisions. In 2021, the group of four with the majority stake filed a lawsuit against Silverstein, who in turn counterclaimed.
According to media reports, the four companies argued that Silverstein wanted to sublet the building without major renovations, even though they were necessary. Silverstein, in turn, accused one of his co-owners of conflicts of interest when he tried to lease office space in the building on preferential terms to a company in which he had an interest. GFP’s Jeffrey Gural said he and the three other companies on his side hoped to retain ownership. You are not interested in selling, rather you want to dissolve the previous partnership with Nathan Silverstein.