February 2019 New York New Developments

The top 10 office lease deals totaled 2.65 million square feet, up more than 885,000 RSF more than the previous months top 10 leases.

1. Deutsche Bank is set to take over 1.1 million square feet of office space at 10 Columbus Circle and will leave 60 Wall Street.
2. Millennium Management signed a lease for 300,000 square feet of space at 399 Park Avenue, relocating from 666 Fifth Avenue. Asking rents are between $73 and $90 per square foot.
3. WeWork signed a lease for 236,000 square feet of space across seven floors at 1440 Broadway, where it will have its own private entrance and lobby. WeWork is looking to open the new space to its members by summer. The building’s landlord is CIM Group.
4. Blackstone, the investment firm, expanded its lease of nearly 149,000 square feet of space at 345 Park Avenue. The space used to be occupied by DWS Group and has been vacant since April.
5. TD Securities, the investment banking firm, signed a lease for 119,000 square feet of space at 1 Vanderbilt Avenue. The lease was the largest of four signed in 1 Vanderbilt last month, totaling 230,000 square feet. The building’s landlord is SL Green Realty.
6. Brink’s, the security company, renewed its 20-year lease for 92,000 square foot custom-built space at 652 Kent Avenue. The landlord is First Jeffersonian Associates.
7. Phillips, the auction house, signed a lease for 55,000 square feet of space at 432 Park Avenue, relocating from just down the street. The building’s landlord is Macklowe Properties.
8. Knotel, the co-working firm, signed a lease for 51,000 square feet of space at 27 West 23rd Street. It will share the building with liquor company Eldrington. The landlord is the Rosen family.
9. Metropolitan Transportation Authority renewed its 10-year lease for just over 47,000 square feet of space at 1 Pierrepont Plaza. The lease is worth $2.4 million a year to start. The deal also includes a tenant-improvement allowance for the MTA to build out its space of $1.95 million, or $41.50 per square foot. The landlord is Forest City New York.
10. Fluent, the digital marketing company, signed a lease for 42,000 square feet of space at 300 Vesey Street, relocating from 33 Whitehall Street. The landlord is Frank Viola’s Virtu Financial.
11. Facebook, the social network, signed a lease for 40,000 square feet of space at 335 Madison Avenue. Asking rents for startups range from $65 to $75 per square foot. The building’s landlord is Milstein Properties.

The 10 biggest retail lease deals signed totaled 148,800 square feet, up 28,000 square feet from last month..

1. Selina, the hotel and co-working company, signed a 63,000-square-foot lease at 138 Bowery. The building’s landlord is Emmut Properties
2. IKEA signed a lease for 17,530 square feet at 999 Third Avenue, For its first Manhattan location. The building’s landlord is the Zucker Organization.
3. Blink Fitness signed a lease for 15,500 square feet at 6502 18th Avenue. The building’s landlords are Jeff Sutton and Eliot Tawil.
4. The North Face signed a lease for 13,000 square feet of space at 584 Broadway, relocating from 139 Wooster Street.
5. Gucci, the luxury brand, signed a long-term lease for 10,000 square feet at 375 West Broadway, where it originally had a short-term space. The building’s landlord is Pearlmark Real Estate Partners.
6. I Love NY Gifts signed a 15-year lease for 9,000 square feet of space at 9 Times Square for a new flagship location. The landlord is American Realty Capital New York City REIT.
7. WeWork signed a lease for 7,460 square feet of space at 902 Broadway. This is the second lease WeWork has signed for its new retail concept. The landlord is the Rosen family.
8. CrossFit, the gym, signed a lease for just over 6,000 square feet of space at 361 West 36th Street. The landlord is Crossroads Owners.
9. Mandee signed a lease for 4,280 square feet at 2625 Broadway. The owner of the office condo is New York-based Sorbert Realty Corp.

JPMorgan Chase plans to knock down its Midtown East headquarters at 270 Park Avenue to make way for a new, 70-story office tower that will span 2.5 million square feet. The new building will be the first to take advantage of the district’s rezoning.

17 Battery a 480,000 Building just announced that this is going to happen and numerous other buildings tenants have been notified that the landlord is going to exercise their demolition clauses.

New York’s hotel market slowed in the third quarter of 2018 with a slight decline in occupancy, down 0.7% to 90.4%, and modest growth in room rates up 0.8%, to $279. Luxury hotels, occupancy fell 1.7%, but average room rates increased 3%, to $474, for a total RevPAR rise of 1.2%.

Restaurateur Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group will open a cafe, named Cedric’s, at the Shed in Hudson Yards on the Westside..

Jamestown is planning to redevelop 1 Times Square, will be getting new signage and some new tenants. Jamestown plans to install 32,000 square feet of new signage at the property, including a 350-foot-tall digital sign on the north facade.

As the Chinese government continues to tighten capital controls amid an economic slowdown and growing uncertainty over trade, Chinese companies have been selling off many of the trophy assets they acquired over the past few years, and analysts expect the trend to continue in 2019.

Women-focused co-working firm the Wing is moving its corporate headquarters to 137 Second and will lease the entire 22,000-square-foot building from a partnership between WeWork investor Joel Schreiber and Jenny Jangana Haim of Continental Equities.

Brookfield Properties is moving ahead on its $2 billion Hudson Yards office tower without a firm commitment from an office tenant. The developer and its partner the Qatari Investment Authority are hoping that tenants will lease up most or all of the spire before 2022, when it is scheduled for completion.

Madison Equities, Thor Equities and Building and Land Technology sold a trio of retail condos at the base of the 212 Fifth Avenue for $26.5 million. The price works out to around $5,736 per square foot.

Co-working giant the We Company, which rebranded itself after SoftBank Group slashed its investment to $2 billion, owns at least 94 trademarks.

Knotel, the flexible office startup, is near signing a long-term lease for the 22-story building at 175 Fifth Avenue, which it plans to open as one of its flexible-office locations either later this year or in 2020.

Kalodop II Park Corp., proposal for an eight-story hotel at 27 East 4th Street, was denied and now the developer is suing New York City. The firm began seeking approvals to convert its one-story parking garage on East 4th Street into a hotel in 2011, The issue is the location is next to the Merchant’s House Museum. Opponents believe that construction on the hotel would damage the landmarked property.

David Werner is in contract to buy around 40% of 237 Park Avenue, valuing the Grand Central-area office building at $1.25 billion. RXR Realty and Walton Street, the Chicago-based real estate private equity firm, will retain the remaining 60% ownership stake in the building.

The holdout tenants of the Chelsea Hotel, are fighting for rent-stabilized rooms, are now taking legal action. The lawsuit is a last-ditch effort to cement the property’s status as an apartment building for permanent residents.

The Georgetown Company has landed financing for its office redevelopment at 787 11th Avenue. The company secured $410 million from Societe Generale, which provided the 10-year commercial mortgage-backed securities loan.

Harry Macklowe’s plans for his Midtown office tower that aims to be the second-tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. The supertall, named Tower Fifth, would stand at 1,551 feet tall. The tower will face a length public review process. The developer is asking for special permits, zoning changes and approvals to build a project that is 66% bigger than allowed under current zoning.

The We Company has launched a no-membership-needed service that allows people to book desk space on demand which is combination of retail and co-working venture called Made By We. The market allows We Company partners can sell curated products. The first space has opened at 902 Broadway in the Flatiron District, and has 100 workplace seats and meeting areas for groups of four to 10 people.

A floor at the new Hudson Yards mall will be filled with companies that started as online-only retailers. The second floor of the project, to open on March 15, will span 77,000 square feet and include companies to establish stores with bigger spaces and longer leases.

WeWork Property Advisors seems ready to finally complete its $850 million purchase of Lord & Taylor’s on Fifth Avenue. Part of the final deal includes the retailer’s parent Hudson’s Bay Company retaining a $125 million equity stake in the property.

All of the remaining assets of Sears Holdings Corporation have been acquired by chairman Edward Lampert for $5.2 billion. He hopes to keep 425 stores open and save 45,000 jobs.

The luxury Italian fashion house Missoni has signed a lease for 3,800 square feet at 680 Madison Avenue. The asking rent was $1,200 per square foot, and the lease is for 15 years.

Richman Group has landed a $188.5 million financing package to build 201 East 125th Street in East Harlem come from Citigroup, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the New York City Housing Development Corporation. The project will have 19 stories and contain 404 units across 421,000 square feet, and 61,000 square feet of ground-floor retail.

The Westin Grand Central hotel is planed to get more than $20 million to renovate the $302 million hotel in Midtown East, which it just bought with financing from Goldman Sachs. The Plaza District-based investor closed on its purchase of the 774-key hotel one block away from Grand Central from seller Host Hotels and Resorts.