Mary K. Jacob

The New York City building that long housed the National Enquirer, the Daily News, and JPMorgan Chase bank is saying goodbye to its offices — and hello to residential living.

Located near the southernmost tip of Manhattan at 25 Water St., this project will be considered the largest office-to-residential conversion in America, creating 1,300 new apartments inside.

Both tabloids had called the location home for the last decade.

The offices were cleared out during the COVID-19 pandemic and never quite returned, citing remote work and JPMorgan Chase consolidating its new Midtown headquarters as an alternative.

JPMorgan Chase had previously been trying to sublease the unoccupied 500,000 square feet of its 700,000 square feet.

In December, the new developers of the property closed on a $535 million loan to support a 22-story office-to-residential conversion project. They purchased the building for $251 million.

The loan is also considered the largest for an office-to-residential conversion in United States history, according to Real Capital Analytics data shared by Newmark.

The new owners, Jeff Gural’s GFP Real Estate, Nathan Berman’s Metro Loft Management and Rockwood Capital are using decades-old rules that ease residential conversions in the Financial District to demolish offices, carve out courtyards and add 10 floors to the 22-story structure.

With the support of Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul, these types of conversions are seen as a way to help the housing supply.

The 1-million-square-foot tower, formerly known as 4 New York Plaza, had last sold to Edge Funds, which paid $270 million in 2015.

The new owners, with plans to raise the height to 32 stories while still complying with density restrictions, see the project as one of the more difficult to compete with.

“I think this one is more complex than other ones that have been done,” GFP head Brian Steinwurtzel told Gothamist. “There’s significant structural work that needs to be done and that is very expensive.”

Although the building won an architectural award when it first opened in the 1960s, it has been likened to a prison with its slit windows allowing minimal sunlight to get in. But the new project plans to change that.

Renderings not yet released to the public show the developers plan to expand the windows, tear down the brown brick facade and turn it into a gray color.

“The expectation is that there certainly will be younger single folks who are just sort of starting out in New York, up to families with children that will be looking for these larger units,” Steinwurtzel added. “It’ll help to continue the transition of the Financial District into a 24/7 mixed-use neighborhood.”

The building is expected to open up for rent in 2025.