THE Peacock network is looking for space so it can expand its wings.
Our media spies say NBC is seeking 300,000 feet of “incremental” space to add to its current office digs, which include its headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
You might recall that back in the mid-1990s, parent General Electric bought about 1.2 million feet of space in 30 Rock and other buildings in Rockefeller Center for $440 million.
This effectively recapitalized Rockefeller Center with its own money, allowing a consortium that included Jerry Speyer and Goldman Sachs to take over the center rather than hand it over to the shareholders of the mortgage created by David Rockefeller Sr..
NBC was worried about paying $40 per square-foot rents in the future and wanted to control its own destiny.
How times have changed!
Now Midtown trophy buildings are worth $1,000 a foot, and rents for other spaces at 30 Rock are running as much as $138 a foot.
A Cushman & Wakefield team led by David Rosenbloom is leading the space search for NBC. He declined to comment through a spokesperson.
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This year’s Between the Bricks awards reflect the year that was in real estate: Dealmakers started out big – but petered out at the end.
Our candidate for the best deal of the year – Macklowe Prop erties’ purchase of seven trophy buildings in Midtown en compassing 6.6 million square feet, with just $50 million down and an eye-popping $6.95 billion in borrowings – could easily become the worst deal if Harry Macklowe doesn’t manage to refinance and/or sell a building or two.
Here are the rest of the Golden Bricks:
* Most Unaffordable Affordable Housing Blowup: The $1.3 billion pact to buy the 46-building Starrett City housing complex in Brooklyn, which died when officials fretted that the buyer would not be able to keep the project affordable. The sellers, including Donald J. Trump, won’t see that kind of money on the table again.
* Fastest Deal Over $1 billion from Contract to Closing: SL Green Realty Corp. and SITQ’s two-week purchase of Nos. 388 and 390 Greenwich Ave. from Citigroup for $1.575 billion. The deal came together after one-time lead bidder Shorenstein Properties, bitten by the credit crunch, failed to strike a deal.
* Biggest Tanked Lease for a New Building: Merrill Lynch was on the verge of signing with Vornado Realty Trust for a new 3 million-foot tower on the site of the Hotel Pennsylvania when Stan O’Neal was dumped as CEO and John Thain – a downtown guy, of course – was tapped to succeed him.
* Most Important Retail Area: Times Square is the hands-down winner with a nearly 24/7 audience and more than 50 million visitors comprising of businesspeople, tourists and locals.
* Best Up and Coming Retail Area: Meatpacking District.
* Most Expensive Retail Deal Ever: American Eagle Outfitters’ lease for a new store at the former HoJo’s site at 1551 Broadway, with retail magician Jeff Sutton and SL Green Realty Corp.
* Greenest Office Building of the Year: One Bryant Park.
* Most Important Government Decision: Rezoning the Hudson Yards.
* Biggest Lease of the Year: Cravath Swain Moore’s renewal at Worldwide Plaza for 617,135 feet.
* Largest Sublease: Lehman Brothers at 1271 Avenue of the Americas for 425,374 feet, and then adding another 73,492 feet.
* Biggest Sale of the Year: The January purchase of 666 Fifth Ave. by Kushner Cos. for $1.8 billion.
* Biggest Downtown Sale: Paramount Group’s purchase of the Deutsche Bank building at 60 Wall St. for $1.18 billion.
* Made Out Like A Bandit Award: Kenneth Schack, who headed Schack & Schack, the small family-owned company that sold Nos. 530, 532 and 536 Broadway for $190 million.
