Tower foreclosures picking up speed
The troubling trend of commercial properties going belly up appears to be picking up speed.
The last few days have brought news of more towers hitting the foreclosure block, one here in Boston, the other in New York.
In Boston, 441 Stuart Street is expected to fetch $30 million when it hits the auction block on April 28. A pair of investor groups had bought the building for more than $37 million back in 2004 in hopes of converting it into condos.
Meanwhile, down in New York, real estate investor Harry Macklowe is having to give the bank the keys to the Financial Time high-rise, the U.S. headquarters for the British financial daily. Macklowe spent nearly $500 million to buy the building, only to default on his payments back in January.
In a case of monumental bad timing, Macklowe followed up this deal with a $7 billion tower shopping spree in New York back in 2007, just before the commercial real estate investment market began to shut down. He ended up having to return the properties to Blackstone Group.
This fresh spate of tower troubles comes on the heels of the blockbuster sale of the Hancock tower at a foreclosure auction late last month.
It looks like that Hancock auction was just the starting gun when it comes to this trend.