Ernst & Young LLP

5 Times Square sells for $34.5 million a floor.

The guessing game is over about 5 Times Square: Crain's reports that Boston Properties will sell the 1.1-million-square-foot, Class A office tower to AVR Realty for $1.28 billion. In cash.  read more »

For several months, the media as well as commercial real estate insiders have dished about the sales fate of 5 Times Square, a 37-story tower built in 2002 that's now the headquarters of Ernst & Young. Boston Properties was supposed to have sold 5 Times Square along with its 280 Park Avenue, but the latter went to Istithmar for $1.2 billion in June.

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• Five Times Square has attracted Ernst & Young (plus Disney and wonderful Red Lobster) since it was built four years ago. And now the place is being sold for $1.3 billion, which is likely the highest price-per-foot tag for any US office building. (NY Sun)
• It's billionaire week at The Post: George Soros has paid his ex-wife $24 million for their old 16-room duplex at 1060 Fifth Avenue. Meanwhile, oilboy Len Blavatnik had co-op board trouble at the San Remo and 927 Fifth. He eventually triumphed at 998 Fifth, and it only cost him $27.5 million. (NY Post)
• Everything you always wanted to know about the awesomeness of Aby Rosen and his awesome friends, and his awesome art and the "high-cachet chits" he called in for 980 Madison. (The New York Times)
• If you're the merchandising president of Martha Stewart Living, you get $48,000 for annual Manhattan rent money. And if you're Ms. Stewart herself, you get $99,000 for a home fence, plus $177,000 for phones and home computers. Laptops for the whole family! (Bloomberg News/NYDN)
• The Timothy Robbins Self Declaration Trust has closed on a $1.351 million house steps below Brooklyn's beloved Old Fulton Street. Will Mr. Mystic River become the next outer borough star? Or maybe that Self Declaration belongs to another Tim Robbins. (Brooklyn Record)
- Max Abelson  read more »
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