Zara Founder Amancio Ortega to Sell Manhattan Office Tower at Steep Loss
Pontegadea set to unload 366 Madison Ave. for about $50 million, underscoring New York's post-pandemic office slump
Amancio Ortega's family office, Pontegadea, is selling a 17-story office building at 366 Madison Ave. in Midtown Manhattan for about $50 million, a nearly 60% decline from the $115.5 million the firm paid for the property in 2006.
The buyer is the Sioni Group and Eastdil Secured brokered the transaction, according to people familiar with the deal. Neither Pontegadea nor Sioni Group commented on the sale.
The markdown on the property — steps from Grand Central Terminal — highlights how far Manhattan office valuations have fallen since the pandemic emptied many downtown and Midtown offices. The sale follows years of weak leasing demand, rising vacancy, and downward pressure on prices across the city’s traditional office corridors.
Pontegadea, the investment vehicle of the Zara founder, has not retreated from real estate more broadly. Ortega, whose net worth is estimated at more than $104 billion, has been active in overseas purchases this year, including the Hotel Banke in Paris for about $113 million and other trophy assets on Barcelona’s Diagonal Avenue.
Citywide efforts to repurpose underused office stock have accelerated as policymakers and developers seek to address both an office glut and an acute housing shortage. Large-scale projects such as 25 Water St. — promoted as the largest office-to-residential conversion in U.S. history — along with conversions at 55 Broad and 5 Times Square, are expected to deliver thousands of apartments. Together with numerous smaller conversions, officials and developers project more than 17,000 new homes from these efforts in the coming years.
The 366 Madison sale is part of a broader trend in which aging office assets are being repositioned or sold at steep discounts. Some owners have signaled plans to convert buildings to residential or other uses; others have opted to divest at reduced prices to reallocate capital. Market participants say the pace and scale of conversions, along with evolving tenant demand for office layouts, are reshaping the city’s commercial real estate landscape.
Analysts caution that any single sale reflects both property-specific factors — such as building condition, leasing profile and location — and broader macro trends. For high-profile investors such as Ortega, occasional divestments of underperforming assets have accompanied continued acquisitions in other markets, underscoring a strategic rebalancing rather than an outright withdrawal from property investment.
The transaction at 366 Madison adds to a stretch of high-visibility deals illustrating the challenges facing New York’s office market and the city’s ongoing efforts to convert idle commercial space into housing amid sustained residential demand.