New York, NY – China’s Anbang Insurance Group Co. has agreed to pay $1.95 billion for New York City’s iconic Waldorf Astoria hotel, the most ever paid for a standing building in the US by a Chinese buyer.

The purchase of the 1,232-room Art Deco tower on Park Avenue is the biggest real estate deal for a single existing hotel in the entire country and marks the high-water mark of a surge in the acquisition of big-ticket New York City properties by Chinese investors.

Earlier this year, Shanghai-based Greenland Holding Group Inc. purchased this year of a 70 percent interest in the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. The project, recently renamed Pacific Park, includes 14 buildings that are yet to be built.

China’s Fosun International Ltd. paid $725 million in late 2013 for lower Manhattan’s 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza, the former headquarters of Chase Manhattan Bank. The building’s main tenant, JPMorgan Chase & Co., has said it will vacate most of its space in the 60-story tower.

Earlier last year, a group including the co-founder of Shanghai’s Soho China Ltd., put $1.4 billion on the table to acquire a 40 percent stake in midtown Manhattan’s General Motors Building, one of New York’s most-valuable office towers.

According to press sources, including Anbang’s purchase of the Waldorf from Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., Chinese investors will have bought $2.7 billion of New York-area real estate in 2014, topping last year’s $2.6 billion.

Anbang is reportedly planning a major renovation of the Waldorf, which could include the conversion of some of the hotel’s upper floors into high-end condominiums.

10/07/2014