The dam is finally about to interrupt within the stalled Manhattan office leasing market — and landlords and brokers are able to pop Champagne corks after the slowest yr on record.
At the least a dozen large deals of as much as 250,000 square feet each are near being done, likely by yr’s end, sources told The Post.
A few of the recent leases are already “out” — meaning they’ve been drawn up and waiting for one side or the opposite to log out. Others are in advanced talks and “trading paper.”
Despite business real estate’s well-known woes, the deals might augur even larger transactions — of as much as 1 million square feet each — in 2024, sources said.
Manhattan’s current overall availability rate is hovering nearly 20%.
All but one involve expensively upgraded older towers, reflecting the so-called “flight to quality.”
“After all they’re going to be at redeveloped older buildings since the brand-new ones, like 1 Vanderbilt and Manhattan West, haven’t any space left,” said one source.
It’s common for a flurry of enormous deals to shut before Jan. 1 in any given yr, partly for tax purposes — and likewise, as one veteran player put it, “so the landlords, brokers, accountants and lawyers can get out of Dodge in time for his or her winter vacations.”
SL Green’s 1 Vanderbilt Paul Martinka
Probably the most tantalizing situation is at repositioned, amenities-rich 22 Vanderbilt, where owner Milstein recently brought Brookfield in to assist with leasing and marketing.
The tower recently landed public relations firm Joele Frank to bring its 1.19 million square feet to 68% leased.
Now, sources said, advanced talks are ongoing with Bain & Co. for a whopping 250,000 square feet and for TD Bank to take 100,000 square feet — expanding from TD’s 200,000 square feet at SL Green’s 1 Vanderbilt round the corner.
A rep for the constructing said, “Nothing to report here — no leases are out.”
Brand recent buildings like 1 Vanderbilt “haven’t any space left,” a source said.Christopher Sadowski
22 Vanderbilt recently landed public relations firm Joele Frank to bring its 1.19 million square feet to 68% leased.
One other pending quarter-million square-foot deal is for American Eagle at George Comfort & Sons’ 63 Madison Ave. The retailer’s offices are currently at Chetrit Group’s 401 Fifth Ave. A second possible lease at 63 Madison is for Baruch College with 100,000 square feet.
A rep for Comfort declined to comment. Savills’ Mitti Liebersohn, the broker for American Eagle, didn’t return an e-mail searching for comment.
A 100,000 square-foot lease for merchant banking firm BDT & MSD Partners at Olayan America’s redeveloped 550 Madison Avenue is “practically a sure thing,” an insider said. It could be a Recent York expansion because the firm currently has only about 33,000 square feet at 1 Vanderbilt.
The firm was formed earlier this yr from the merger of Byron Trott’s BDT & Company and MSD Partners, an investment firm that was backed by Michael Dell.
BDT & MSD Partners is signing a 100,000 square-foot lease at 550 Madison Ave.Getty Images
A rep for Olayan had no comment. The tower — which a broker recently told us was “on fire within the midst of a terrible market” —was nearly 70% leased even before a BDT & MSD deal.
Farther west, law firm Ropes & Gray is in “advanced discussions” to take 240,000 square feet of Warner Bros. Discovery sublease space at Related Corporations’ 30 Hudson Yards. If a deal is struck, the firm would go away 1211 Sixth Ave., where it has about 300,000 square feet.
The Sixth Avenue tower is home to Recent York Post parent News Corp and to Fox Corp., which as we reported in January signed separate lease extensions through 2042. The media corporations have a complete of nearly 1.2 million square feet within the two 2 million square-foot tower owned by pension fund Ivanhoe Cambridge.
Ropes & Gray is in “advanced discussions” to take 240,000 square feet of Warner Bros. Discovery sublease space at Related Corporations’ 30 Hudson Yards.Getty Images
Cushman & Wakefield’s Josh Kuriloff and Mitchell Arkin, the leasing agents for 1211 Sixth, didn’t return a call for comment.
Nonetheless, several other corporations are vying for the Hudson Yards space, one in all which is Susquehanna International Group, now at 140 Broadway.
Even larger deals might soon be within the works. The Post’s Lois Weiss reported that Blackstone, American Express and Jane Street Capital, amongst others, are scouting for about 1 million square feet each.
