Weill Cornell Medicine has acquired the former Sotheby’s headquarters at 1334 York Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side for $510 million. The transaction, reported by Bloomberg, involves a 500,000-square-foot property and equates to $1,020 per square foot.
The purchase follows Weill Cornell’s previous agreement two years ago to lease approximately 200,000 square feet—about 40 percent of the building—from Sotheby’s. That leased space was intended for both computational research labs and wet labs focused on drug, chemical, and biological research. The institution was scheduled to begin occupying its portion this year.
Sotheby’s will lease back four floors from Weill Cornell as part of the deal. According to ARTnews, proceeds from the sale will be used by Sotheby’s to pay down debt and invest in its main business operations. The auction house also plans to renovate the space it is retaining within the York Avenue building.
In a statement regarding the acquisition, Weill Cornell said that buying the property represented “materially the same net cost as leasing.”
JLL brokers David Giancola, Geoff Goldstein, and Steve Klein represented Weill Cornell in this transaction. Sotheby’s was represented by Doug Middleton and Mary Ann Tighe of CBRE.
Sotheby’s has been preparing to relocate its main operations to the Breuer Building at 945 Madison Avenue after purchasing it from the Whitney Museum of American Art for $100 million in spring 2023. The new location will host auctions and exhibitions when Sotheby’s completes its move next month.
Previously, in 2020, Sotheby’s secured a five-year floating-rate loan of $483 million from Barclays for the York Avenue property. This financing retired earlier debt on the asset, including a $252 million loan from BNP Paribas obtained in October 2019.
Sotheby’s has occupied the York Avenue building since 1980. In 2019, it underwent a $55 million expansion and redesign.
