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Deal for 60 Wall St. bodes well for Lower Manhattan
Bushburg Properties is in contract to buy the vacant 60 Wall St. for $400 million, a steep fall from its price a decade ago. The planned purchase matters because Bushburg may convert the 47-storey tower into apartments, bringing an imposing, long-dark building back into use and adding to Lower Manhattan’s housing supply.
The building has been empty since Deutsche Bank moved out between 2018 and 2021, and an earlier $250 million modernisation plan failed to revive interest in it as offices. Its large floor plates may make an apartment conversion difficult, and the number of homes is not yet known. Lower Manhattan has gained 5,419 apartments through office conversions in the past decade; more than 25 million square feet of Manhattan office space is planned or rumoured for repurposing, with downtown representing 44 per cent.
In short
- Bushburg is set to buy 60 Wall St. for $400 million.
- The vacant 47-storey tower may become apartments.
- Downtown office conversions have added 5,419 homes in 10 years.
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Converting 60 Wall St. into apartments could put a long-vacant tower back to productive use and add homes in a part of Manhattan where office conversions are already expanding the housing supply. The steeply reduced purchase price may make a difficult project viable, while a residential use could help Lower Manhattan adapt to lasting changes in demand for office space.
The case against
The building’s large floor plates may make apartments costly or impractical to create, and the eventual number of homes is unknown, so the deal may deliver less housing than its scale suggests. A conversion could also prove financially risky after an earlier modernisation plan failed to revive the property, while leaving the tower’s potential for renewed office use unrealised.
Explained simply
60 Wall St. is a 47-storey office tower in Lower Manhattan, a business district at the southern end of Manhattan in New York City. Deutsche Bank left the building between 2018 and 2021, and plans to modernise it as offices did not attract a new occupant.
Bushburg Properties is a property company, and the building’s large floor plates could make turning it into homes challenging. The number of apartments, if the conversion goes ahead, has not been announced.
The possible change comes as Lower Manhattan has added thousands of homes by converting offices over the past decade. More broadly, plans to reuse office space for other purposes are being considered across Manhattan, with a substantial share in the downtown area.