A FiDi landlord once known for its local hotel projects has parted with a retail complex near its office.
Wall Street-located Hidrock Properties has sold 72 Nassau St., a mixed-use site at John Street lined with narrow and modest stores, for $18.4 million, according to a deed that appeared in the city register Monday.
The buyer was the Malachite Group, a Long Island firm that owns properties in 20 states and similar mixed-use properties nearby, including 20 John St., 53 Nassau St. and 253 Broadway, according to its website.
Malachite completed the purchase of the 3-story building with $12.1 million in acquisition funding from Flushing Bank, based on the register.
The deal went into contract nearly a year ago, on April 10, 2024, and closed March 15. Why there was such a long lag time between the two transactions is unclear. An email sent to Hidrock CEO Abie Hidary was not returned by press time. And an effort to contact the principals of Mineola-based Malachite was unsuccessful by press time.
Based on the register, Hidrock paid $36 million in 2019 for the prewar property, whose current tenants include a pizzeria, a coffee shop and an eyebrow threading business, though at least one berth appears vacant. The building does not sit in a protective historic district.
But last month’s resale doesn’t necessarily constitute a loss for Hidrock. Indeed, the 2019 transaction also included 10 apartments on the building’s upper floors that make up a separate commercial condo using the address 39 John St.
At least some of the residential units are rent-stabilized, according to state Division of Housing and Community Renewal records. Buildings that contain rent-regulated homes have sold for sharp losses since the state began enacting pro-renter reforms in 2019.
The apartments seem to rarely turn over. No apartment has changed hands in the building since 2019, when a three-bedroom, one-bath unit went for $4,700 a month, based on StreetEasy records.
Founded in 1982 by Hidary’s father, Jack, Hidrock Properties became known in recent years for a series of high-profile hotel projects, most of them in partnership with Marriott, including at 960 Sixth Ave., 25 W. 37th St. and 133 Greenwich St., though Hidrock has since unloaded its stake in all three projects, according to the register.
Also, a hotel once planned for FiDi’s 140 Fulton St., where Hidrock has tangled with a lender for years over a supposedly defaulted mortgage, has been stalled for years and is still a vacant lot.
Last year the firm also offloaded FiDi hotel development site 112 Liberty St. to Hiwin Group for $22 million, a price that represented a sharp loss.
Hidrock has had a presence in South Florida since the 1980s, according to its website. But in 2021, after “recognizing demographic shifts”—an apparent nod to the migration of some executives and their firms from New York to the Sunshine State—Hidrock began snapping up sites in Miami neighborhoods including Miami Beach and Wynwood, its site says. It’s now at work on several rental and retail projects there.
