Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance advises GLL Real Estate Partners on an investment fund structuring acquiring a 99-year ground lease at 589 Fifth Avenue, New York City

International law firm Clifford Chance advised GLL Management Company SARL, a subsidiary of GLL Real Estate Partners, a German-based real estate fund manager, member of Macquarie Group, on the set-up of a Luxembourg investment fund to acquire, via an underlying US acquisition structure, a 99-year ground lease at 589 Fifth Avenue, New York City.

The 184,000-square-foot mixed-use property sits on the southeast corner of East 48th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and is the firm’s largest transaction to date. The office component totals 127,000 square feet, with floor plates ranging from 5,000 to 15,000 square feet. GLL said the ground lease at 589 Fifth Avenue exceeded the firm’s previous transaction in Manhattan, the $110-million acquisition of a full-block retail condominium on the Upper East Side in 2018.

The Clifford Chance team advising GLL and Macquarie on this transaction was led out of Luxembourg by Kristof Meynaerts, Investment Funds partner, with the assistance of Peter Audesirk and the Frankfurt team led by Jan Grabbe, Tax partner.