Landmark Buildings You Can Invest in

The owners of the Empire State Building are creating a $1 billion real estate investment trust out of the crown of the New York City skyline.

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The owners of the Empire State Building are creating a $1 billion real estate investment trust out of the crown of the New York City skyline. Empire State Realty Trust will begin trading later this year on the New York Stock Exchange. If you buy shares in the REIT, which will also include a dozen lesser New York properties, you'll essentially be a part-owner of what is arguably the world's most famous office tower.

Empire State won't be a sure winner. The building is in the midst of hundreds of millions of dollars in critical, overdue renovations. It is currently only two-thirds filled, mostly with small and midsize tenants, whose rents are far below the average for midtown Manhattan. The building houses no notable corporate headquarters or major investment companies.

Still, from a bragging-rights perspective, the opportunity to say you own a piece of this legendary building is intriguing. Turns out that there are a bunch of other landmarks, foreign or American, that you can own through REITs, regular stocks or the American depositary receipts of overseas-based companies. Here, besides King Kong's cinematic aerie on 34th Street, are 11 investor-owned landmarks, listed by property name and in alphabetical order.

Jeffrey R. Kosnett
Senior Editor, Kiplinger's Personal Finance
Kosnett is the editor of Kiplinger's Investing for Income and writes the "Cash in Hand" column for Kiplinger's Personal Finance. He is an income-investing expert who covers bonds, real estate investment trusts, oil and gas income deals, dividend stocks and anything else that pays interest and dividends. He joined Kiplinger in 1981 after six years in newspapers, including the Baltimore Sun. He is a 1976 journalism graduate from the Medill School at Northwestern University and completed an executive program at the Carnegie-Mellon University business school in 1978.