L&L collects hefty dividend on West 39th St. 'bargain'.

L&L Holding Company, LLC, which masterfully transformed a non-descript West Side industrial building into one of the most successful specialty showroom properties in the city, has sold the 39th Street Fashion Center for $93.5 million, nearly five times what it paid for the building in 2000.

Home today to many leading young women's ready-to-wear firms like Anna Sui, the 181,000 square foot 250 West 39th Street was purchased by a pension fund client of Lincoln Property Company, according to L&L Holding Company Chairman and CEO David W. Levinson. Ironically, Mr. Levinson, and his L&L partner Robert Lapidus, acquired the West 39th Street for $20 million just months before two shocking events--the dot com collapse followed by 9/11--rocked the Manhattan real estate market and derailed its plan to upgrade the space for office use.

Instead, sensing a need in the marketplace, Messers Levinson and Lapidus decided to move ahead with a daring redevelopment and repositioning plan aimed at creating an elite one-of-a-kind women's fashion building. The property, boasting a strong new image thanks to a modernized lobby, windows and strorefronts and clean facade, quickly attracted a host of designer tenants. By 2004, L&L Holding Company recapitalized 250 West 39th Street for $41 million.

"There isn't a better example of how our company adds value and reenergizes real estate than West 39th Street," asserted Levinson. "We really created a gem of a building here and we're very proud of that."

The Cushman & Wakefield team of Richard Baxter, Scott Latham, Jon Caplan and Ron Cohen served as advisors to L&L on the sales transaction.