Marcianos’ newest win

A tangled web of stakes in 292 Madison Ave. has now been consolidated by the Marciano brothers of Guess jeans, who also own half the iconic Lipstick Building at 885 Third Ave.

Back in June of 2007, SL Green Realty Corp. sold the operating leasehold on 292 Madison to the Marcianos and Jacob Abikzer’s Metropolitan Real Estate Advisors for $140 million. A separate deal with SLG got the same group their Lipstick stake for $648.5 million.

At the end of 2010, SLG purchased the ground, aka the “fee,” under the 292 office building from Gramercy Capital for $78,044,000, which included taking over the mortgage. Last week, the Marcianos bought the fee from SLG for $85 million and took over the $59,098,946 mortgage. This deal was marketed by Eastdil Secured’s ace investment team of Douglas Harmon and Adam Spies.

In 2010, Eastdil sold the Bank of Scotland’s $60 million note on the leasehold interest to JEMB’s Morris Bailey and his son-in-law, Joseph Jerome, and that was paid off by the Marcianos last year.

The Marcianos also bought Metropolitan’s share of 292, although that company retains its involvement in the Lipstick Building.

Gerald Nocera of Herald Square Properties, who was formerly president of SLG, is now 292 Madison’s asset manager. He is overseeing the capital investments in the lobby, common areas and pre-builts, along with the leasing of the 187,000 square-foot building at the southwest corner of 41st Street.

In fact, FiftyOne Global Ecommerce has just snagged a two-floor, 17,148 square-foot office to be pre-built in a contemporary design by the Mufson Partnership.

The Ecommerce tenant, which will move from 8 W. 40th St., was represented by Wendy Miller of Cassidy Turley. The new two full floors of offices will include 11,113 square feet on the fifth and 6,035 square feet on the 17th floor. The asking rents are $55 a square foot.

“The floors were under construction, and we made de minimis changes to accommodate their specific use,” said William Cohen of Newmark Knight Frank, who, along with Ryan Kass, represents the building.

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Cohen and Kass of NKF are also the agents for the Empire State Building, which is getting some investigative muscle as the former FBI boss Louis Freeh is moving his law firm, Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan, to the Fifth Avenue and 34th Street skyscraper.

Freeh, who is the Chapter 11 trustee for the formerly Jon Corzine-led MF Global Holdings bankruptcy, will be sniffing out its assets from a 5,400 square-foot pre-built on the 31st floor of the tower.