A low-rise Midtown office building that luxury developer Harry Macklowe once dreamed of knocking down and transforming into a 1 million-square-foot skyscraper has traded hands for almost $15 million, records show.
The real estate mogul, who founded his firm Macklowe Properties in the 1960s, offloaded 12 E. 52nd St. for $14.8 million, according to a deed that appeared in the city register Monday. Macklowe yearned to raze the existing 7-story building on the lot, as well as the one next to it, and put up a 96-story supertall in its place, which he preemptively named Tower Fifth.
Macklowe acquired the lot in question, between Fifth and Madison avenues, for $32 million in 2016, records show, and was apparently in contract to seize the adjacent property at 14 E. 52nd St., too, in order to facilitate plans for his latest development. But his dreams of ever building Tower Fifth — which is still listed as a current project on his firm’s website — were stymied when the Financial District-based investment company Ramirez Asset Management swooped in and bought 14 E. 52nd St. for $19.5 million in 2023, records show.
Two years later, Ramirez Asset Management — an affiliate of Samuel A. Ramirez & Company — is now the new owner of 12 E. 52nd St. as well, which the firm acquired under the entity Ram HQ II LLC. Samuel Ramirez Jr., president and CEO of the firm, signed the deed on behalf of the buyer, records show.
Ramirez told Crain’s Monday that he intends to make the entirety of both 7-story buildings the company’s new corporate headquarters, moving the firm from 61 Broadway, where it’s been located since 1971, to Midtown, several hundred feet from St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Rockefeller Center. Ramirez said he just completed interior renovations on No. 14 and will be doing the same at No. 12. Both buildings are currently vacant, he said.
It’s unclear why Macklowe’s plans for what he called Tower Fifth never came to fruition. Ramirez declined to comment on what happened, and Macklowe did not return a request for comment by press time.
Macklowe also recently sold the former Center for Fiction building at 17 E. 47th St. for $7.9 million, Crain’s reported last week. Andrew Albstein, a partner at Midtown-based law firm Goldberg Weprin Finkel Goldstein, which represented Macklowe in the sale of both 17 E. 47th and 12 E. 52nd, records show, did not return a request for comment by press time.
