I don’t know how reliable the estimates involved are, but this article from a Pakistan website came across a google alert today. The property is a 1-acre teardown within a short walk of Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal:

Roosevelt Hotel to be sold out

Naveed Miraj

ISLAMABAD: The government has finally decided to sell the famous PIA-owned Roosevelt Hotel in a bid to add some foreign exchange to the national exchequer and has asked the Privatization Commission to arrange open bidding to this end.

The commission hopes to get a minimum offer of eight hundred million US dollars as compared to two hindered million dollars the Shaukat Aziz-led government had expected for the hotel located in the busiest commercial area of Manhattan in New York.

The previous government was in haste to sell off the hotel apparently to oblige some of its blue-eyed officials but shelved its plan following the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Pakistan Steel privatisation case.

In the wake of the current economic crunch, the government has decided to sell the hotel in the hope of getting handsome foreign exchange.

If you are one who thinks that land rent – the value which the land itself would rent for each year – is not a large enough tax base to provide much in the way of revenue, consider that this single acre, taxed annually at 5% of its proposed selling price, could provide $40 million each year in income to support the spending needs of NYC, NYS and the federal government. I don’t know what NYC is collecting in property taxes on land and buildings, but it isn’t much – which is part of why the asking price can be so high.

Think what it would mean to shift $40 million worth of taxation off wages, off sales, off buildings!

PIA is the airline of Pakistan.

See previous posts about this site at That block in Manhattan … and Hotel Roosevelt For Sale at $1 Billion