[ad_1]
Sotheby’s will buy the previous web site of the Whitney Museum of American Artwork and relocate its headquarters from the York Avenue constructing it has known as residence for greater than 4 a long time, a deal that confirms months of rumours concerning the public sale home’s actual property maneuvers.
Sotheby’s had no remark concerning the value of the constructing, however individuals accustomed to the deal advised The New York Occasions and Artnet Information the Whitney had offered its Marcel Breuer-designed constructing for a bit over $100m. Sotheby’s will take possession of the Breuer constructing in September 2024, the public sale home stated, however will retain possession of the York Avenue advanced till it opens its new galleries within the Breuer constructing in 2025.
Breuer’s Brutalist construction has been a fixture within the New York artwork world because it was accomplished in 1966. It was residence to the Whitney till 2015 when the museum moved to its new Renzo Piano-designed residence within the Meatpacking District. Subsequently it served as an outpost of the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork often called the Met Breuer, the place the museum staged Trendy and modern artwork reveals. At present it’s being rented to the Frick Assortment whereas that museum’s Higher East Aspect mansion undergoes a renovation (the Frick’s lease ends in August 2024).
“We’re honoured to accumulate and write the subsequent chapter of such an iconic and well-known New York architectural landmark,” Sotheby’s chief govt Charles F. Stewart says in an announcement. “We regularly consult with the provenance of art work, and within the case of The Breuer, there isn’t any historical past richer than the museum which has housed the Whitney, Metropolitan and Frick collections.”
Rumours about Sotheby’s probably transferring its headquarters have been swirling for months. Within the June print subject, The Artwork Newspaper reported that the public sale home was wanting into promoting its present New York flagship, a former cigar manufacturing unit and Kodak warehouse at 1334 York Avenue on Manhattan’s Higher East Aspect.
The public sale home’s proprietor Patrick Drahi, the French-Israeli billionaire, refinanced the five hundred,000 sq. ft constructing in 2020 utilizing a five-year $483m floating charge mortgage from Barclays, in accordance with The Actual Deal, a property information web site. In 2020 US rates of interest have been at zero. Final month the Federal Reserve raised the price of borrowing to a 16-year excessive of 5.25%.
Over that very same interval, the share value of Altice USA, the cable TV firm owned by Drahi, has fallen by 93%. Altice USA relies in Lengthy Island Metropolis the place, in February 2020, Sotheby’s additionally spent $82m on a brand new, nine-story workplace constructing.
Regardless of right this moment’s information, just a few weeks in the past a Sotheby’s spokesperson denied the rumours of a transfer, telling The Artwork Newspaper: “York Avenue shouldn’t be on the market”.
Sotheby’s bought the York Avenue location for $11m and spent $140m on increasing and renovating the area earlier than transferring in in 1980. Sotheby’s offered the constructing in 2002—amid a price-fixing scandal that additionally implicated rival Christie’s—for $175m to actual property agency RFR Holding, which leased it again to the public sale home. Sotheby’s repurchased the area in 2009 for $370m. In 2019, Sotheby’s spent an extra $55m renovating its York Avenue advanced to maximise gallery area.
The Breuer constructing deal will present a major increase to the Whitney’s endowment. The sale can even permit the museum to “focus its undivided consideration and all of its energies on forwarding our mission” within the Meatpacking District, the Whitney’s outgoing director Adam Weinberg stated in an announcement.
[ad_2]
Source link
