Iconic Hell’s Kitchen Building, Home to Birdland Jazz Club, Sold at 67% Discount

An iconic, nearly 100-year-old commercial building is being sold by NYC mega-developer Related Companies — at an approximately 67% discount from what the Stephen Ross-owned real estate empire bought it for, according to reports.

The 10-story building at 321 W44th St (between 8th and 9th Aves) has been home to the renowned Birdland Jazz Club for close to 40 years, as well as a branch of Gyu Kaku Japanese BBQ . Other tenants include the ad agency AKA.

It’s the home of the legendary Record Plant Studios (now Battery Studios , owned by Sony), where icons including John Lennon regularly recorded. Bob Gruen’s last photo of John and his wife Yoko Ono together was taken outside the building in December 1980. On its eastern-facing wall, a colorful, retro-style mural created by Brooklyn-based artists Patrick McNeil and Patrick Miller, collectively known as FAILE , pays homage to the building’s history.

Related is now selling the entire property for less than $50 million to Empire Capital Holdings and Namdar Realty Group, after buying it in 2018 for close to $153 million, Bloomberg first reported .

Prior to 2018, the building had been purchased in 2015 by Jowa Holdings Company, Limited, of Tokyo, Japan for $165 million, records show.

Local leaders in Hell’s Kitchen and across the city have long been pressing for commercial spaces in Midtown to be converted to residential use, such as the art deco McGraw Hill building on W42nd St as the pandemic recovery marches on and workers continue to trickle back into their offices at a slow pace.

According to Bloomberg, office properties across the country have lost value alongside the rise of remote work. Rising costs are leading some owners, like Related, to foreclose on certain buildings or “cut their losses” and sell.

The past years have been particularly challenging for older office buildings, as opposed to glitzier ones in areas like Hudson Yards (also owned by Related), the New York Times reported last week . According to the Times, the number of office buildings reaching “critical levels of destress” overall remains low, but has “risen sharply this year,” and the worst may be yet to come.

Commercial office buildings across Hell’s Kitchen have been grappling with an unstable market in recent years. Last fall, the 50-story tower Worldwide Plaza announced the exodus of tenants Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Nomura Holdings.

In June 2023, CBS considered selling its historic broadcast center, which occupies an entire city block on W57th St; a sale has not yet been made, according to property records.

When W42ST asked Birdland’s owner Gianni Valenti whether he was expecting a proportionate (67%) reduction in rent, he laughed and said: “From your lips to God’s ears!”

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