Hancock Tower sells for $660m at auction

NEW YORK -- The John Hancock Tower was sold today for $660.6 million at a foreclosure auction in New York City.

The signature Back Bay building was acquired by a partnership between Normandy Real Estate Partners and Five Mile Capital Partners, which have been quietly buying some of the debt on the building since June.

The partnership was the only entity to bid for the Hancock during the auction, which lasted less than 10 minutes.

The firms initiated foreclosure after the Hancock's previous owner, Broadway Partners of New York, defaulted on some of the loans it used to buy property for $1.3 billion in late 2006.

Normandy, a leading real estate private firm in the Northeast, will take over management responsibilities of the Hancock.

The firm, based in Morristown, N.J., has more than 4 million square feet of space under management in Boston.

As part of the auction, Normandy also purchased 10 Universal City Plaza in Burbank, Calif., for $304.8 million.

To read a story in today's Globe about the auction, please click here.
(By Casey Ross, Globe staff. Photo credit, John Morrison.)