
Toll Brothers acquired the site for the project in New York’s Flatiron district in 2013
Chinese real estate developer Gemdale Properties & Investment has set up its fifth US real estate joint venture in just over 13 months, and its second major project in Manhattan, according to an announcement yesterday to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Together with US developer Toll Brothers, the heavyweight mainland homebuilder has pledged a guarantee of $70 million against a credit facility worth more than $236 million to support a development project there. The guarantee was made “to enable the JV Company to obtain the Facility to finance its construction and development of the residential project” at 122-130 East 23rd Street, a luxury condominium which Toll Brothers initiated in 2013.
Latest Gemdale NYC JV Revealed
The announcement by Gemdale is its first public acknowledgement of involvement in the project in New York’s Flatiron district, and comes after the Hong Kong-listed firm set up earlier joint ventures with US developers in Calfornia, New York and Massachussetts.
Gemdale has not yet stated the size of its stake in the 133-unit tower, which according to New York public records is still counted as a Toll Brothers subsidiary. Toll Brothers bought the site in September 2013 for $150 million, and filed plans to build an 18-storey tower there last year. In April, the US developer filed an offering plan with local authorities in New York that valued the 133 units in the building at a total of more than $503 million.
The tie-up with Toll Brothers comes less than four months after the state-owned developer handed over $69.9 million for a piece of 45 Broad Street, an 84-story, 1,127-foot (343 metre) supertall tower of residential and office condominiums being built by New York developer Madison Equities.
At 45 Broad Street, Gemdale reportedly took an 81.3 percent stake in the $442 million project.
Chinese Developer Covers US Coasts

Gemdale chairman Ling Ke now has projects in NY, Boston, San Jose, San Francisco and LA
In addition to its New York projects, Gemdale has also been active in Boston and California, typically choosing to work with well-established US players. In May this year the Chinese developer joined with Houston-based Hines to kickstart a 475 unit residential development in Boston.
That project in the northeast came just three months after Gemdale had signed up with Dallas-based Lincoln Property to acquire a 21.5 acre (87,000 square metre) commercial site in San Jose from Trammell Crow. Gemdale had also joined with Lincoln in 2014 to buy an office tower site at 350 Bush Street in San Francisco.
Keeping with its approach of working with top-tier US real estate partners in gateway cities, in September 2015 Gemdale partnered with LaTerra Development for a $125 million mixed-use project in Hollywood, California.
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