Hegemonic Carlyle Group Buys Two Small Meatpacking Buildings

There’s something about the West Side of Manhattan that seems fitting for the Carlyle Group. When the buyout firm purchased a parcel of land along Riverside Drive in 2005 with Extell for $1.76 billion it made sense: If a $20 billion Washington firm full of stodgy bankers and investors and former politicians (James Baker and George H. W. Bush once served as advisers) were to develop in Manhattan, it would surely be somewhere near Riverside Drive.

Which makes this news all the stranger: The Carlyle Group has purchased two tiny buildings in the meatpacking district, according to city records.

It purchased, along with Sitt Asset Management, a 9,900-square-foot building at 414 West 14th Street and the 16,100-square-foot 416-418 West 14th Street for $70 million from the Icon Group.

The Carlyle Group declined to comment, but it’ll be curious to see what it fills the retail space with: a nightclub, dare we say? The club that used to be there, Rare, has closed.