Brookfield to buy NYMEX building in Battery Park City

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Update November 26, 2013- The most poorly kept secret is confirmed. The NYMEX will sell to Brookfield for $200 Million, then re-lease the lower half, keeping the NYMEX trading floor in place. This is according to Commercial Observer.

Update August 13, 2013- Crain’s is reporting that Brookfield is in talks to buy the NYMEX building for $190 Million. However, what this really means is unknown since the BPCA is the actual “owner” of all property in the area.

Update June 3, 2013– Bloomberg is reporting that the NYMEX building by the ferry boat slip is indeed up for sale. “CME Group Inc. (CME), the world’s largest futures exchange, hired real estate brokers to sell its 16-story New York Mercantile Exchange tower, with plans to potentially lease back a portion of the building and its trading floor. CME Group may also consider relocating the exchange to another property in lower Manhattan, according to a statement today from the Chicago-based company. It will continue operating the Nymex trading floor in New York regardless of a sale.”

The Mercantile Exchange is just the latest financial company to leave Battery Park. Nomura and Deloitte are leaving, and Merrill Lynch left long ago.

However, Goldman Sachs, new to Battery Park, could be the smart ones, as the WTC opens soon, and Downtown will be a new business hub.The office space in Midtown is becoming too pricy, and is old in the tooth. The millions of new square feet in the Brookfield renovated buildings, and WTC, will be better locations for doing business. The new $4 Billion transportation hub is another selling point.

March 23, 2013- The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the New York Mercantile Exchange might sell the building in Battery Park City for an estimated $500 Million. The trading floor, one of the few remaining in the country with real humans yelling out trades, has long been a shadow of itself, as electronic trading and computers have taken over the markets. The article stated the the trading operation might stay in place under a leaseback deal.

In the article, “At Nymex, more than 1,000 floor traders gathered only a decade ago to haggle over energy and metal derivatives contracts. That number is closer to 100 today. Pit trading in Kansas City is relocating entirely to Chicago, ending a tradition that goes back more than 150 years to daily grain auctions on the banks of the Missouri River. While trades are still carried out in iconic buildings such as the New York Stock Exchange NYX +0.73% and the art-deco Chicago Board of Trade, exchange companies have moved big parts of their operations from city-center locations to drabber suburban properties that house humming servers instead of screaming traders.”