THE first tasty sales of ferings of the year are being brought to market.
The real estate investment trust SL Green Realty Corp. wants to cash out of its modern, 39-story Herald Square building at 1250 Broadway and hopes a sale will fetch more than $350 million.
The 770,000 foot building sits between West 31st and West 32nd streets and is anchored by the Visiting Nurse Association, which has over 400,000 feet.
The building is 99-percent leased at below-market rents, with the rest inhabited by a variety of smaller tenants. Korean bank Woori Bank occupies the corner retail space, which is passed by 2,700 pedestrians an hour.
For those who’d rather drive into shopping mayhem central, there is also a 150-space parking garage.
The Fearless Foursome at Cushman & Wakefield’s capital markets group – Richard Baxter, Ron Cohen, Scott Latham and Jon Caplan – have been tapped to handle the sales efforts.
They declined comment.
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Next up is GHI’s 400,000-foot headquarters at 441 Ninth Ave. on the southwest corner of West 35th Street. It is expected to fetch somewhere between $210 million and $250 million.
The health care company expects to lease the building back for two or three years, sources said, adding that eventual rent back into the pricing mix.
The building has parking and can also grow by about 75,000 feet, providing even more upside for the next owner.
Its position on the edge of the Hudson Yards district is also adding cachet and clout to the sales pitch, which is being handled by Jimmy “King” Kuhn, president of Newmark Knight Frank.
Kuhn also did not return calls prior to deadline.
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Starting the year off with some positive absorption, Ogilvy & Mather, a subsidy of the WPP Group, finally signed its long-awaited deal for 564,363 feet at 636 Eleventh Ave. at West 47th Street for its new worldwide headquarters.
Signing of the deal took place at 4 a.m. yesterday and will move the firm out of Worldwide Plaza.
Cushman & Wakefield’s Mitchell Konsker, Paul Glickman and Jack Cohen represented owners The Hakimian Organization and its partners Peykar Brothers Realty and Gorjian Properties.
Ogilvy was represented by Gregory Tosko and Casey Hirschhorn of CB Richard Ellis.
The firm had been talking with L&L Holdings about moving into 200 Fifth Ave., but that would have involved sharing the building and Ogilvy wanted the branding opportunity.
Beyond the size of the space involved, the new deal – cut in the $50s range, sources said – is significant because it takes a long dormant former warehouse that was once destined to become a telecom hotel and converts it into modern, Class A office space in a currently outlying office area.
Gensler architects designed the LEED-certified project.
One reason that long cocooned properties are turning into butterflies is that the city has its lowest vacancy rates in seven years.
According to Cushman & Wakefield’s economist Ken McCarthy, even if a worst-case 100,000 financial services jobs are lost, the vacancy rate would rise from its current 5.7 percent to only 9 percent. Meanwhile, with vacancies totaling 22.2 million feet, Konsker says there is still 2.5 times the number of tenants looking as there is space available.
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Adding some excitement to the Upper East Side, a spokesman confirmed that Polo Ralph Lauren will be moving out temporarily while it renovates and expands its store at 888 Madison Ave., which is owned by Friedland Properties and sits on the southwest corner of East 72nd Street.
The plans call for the two-story, 10,000-foot building to be demolished and rebuilt as a traditional Beaux Arts structure of just under 20,000 feet.
Buildings Dept. records so far only sow a renovation but that would change after zoning and Landmarks Commission approvals. The four-story building would also connect to a neighboring townhouse of about 13,800 feet at 22 E. 72nd St., which also is owned by Friedland and currently being vacated by art galleries.
Polo will relocate to 11,000 feet at 1055 Madison Ave. at East 80th Street. Gene Spiegelman of Cushman & Wakefield repped the 1055 owner, the estate of Norman Alexander, and sources said the asking rent was $2.5 million per year. Spiegelman declined comment.
