EVEN as many Wall Street firms continue to reel from the credit-market crunch, Goldman Sachs is busily refining its real estate needs based on the opening of its new 2 million-foot tower in 2010.
The investment bank titan will give up about 3 million feet of space in at least five buildings – more than what it has to move into at the World Financial Center, its new headquarters.
Goldman intends to shift from its 1.1 million-foot home at 85 Broad St., which it sold to Met Life in 1995 for $310 million.
It will also give up 800,000 feet at 180 Maiden Lane, a 1.09 million-foot building owned by the Moinian Group.
Brookfield Properties will wave sayonara to Goldman as the bank exits 546,000 feet at One New York Plaza and another 200,000 feet at One Liberty Plaza.
Goldman also will place up for sublet the entire 561,549-foot 77 Water St.; it holds a net lease through June 2021.
The withdrawn office space represents a mere 3 percent of downtown’s total and about 10 percent of first-class territory.
“It’s a lot of space that has to be spoken for,” said Robert Shapiro of Grubb & Ellis. “But some of the space wasn’t even occupied.”
Goldman, like other large companies, keeps a lot of offices unoccupied for its future needs.
Still, the city is starting to feel the elbow room created by more office space hitting the market from ravaged firms. That could create a relief valve for top-of-the-market rents that generally run from $80 to $120 a foot for larger sizes.
Nomura is giving up 100,000 feet at 2 World Financial Center, where American Express is shedding 70,000 feet.
Royal Bank of Scotland inherited 140,000 feet at 7 World Trade Center through its purchase of ABN Amro, but it hasn’t occupied it; the space is on the sublease market through Joseph Harkins at Grubb & Ellis.
In Midtown, there are rumblings of room riddance from Lehman Brothers, which recently completed a deal for more than 400,000 feet at the Time-Life Building at 1251 Sixth Ave. that it no longer wants.
Bank of America, which will soon move into its own Durst Organization-developed One Bryant Park tower, also will be giving up space around town.
But Deutsche Bank gave Jones Lang LaSalle a 500,000-foot space assignment. That’s because the firm has offices in a couple of Park Avenue locations and must determine if they will renew or consolidate elsewhere.
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Speaking of Deutsche Bank, the agreements to sell the former Equity Office Properties’ towers are nearly complete, so those buildings should hit the market early next month.
Harry Macklowe bought the properties last year for $7 billion by cross mortgaging them with other buildings, thus putting much of his portfolio in jeopardy and triggering the GM Building sale saga.
Amid all of this activity, brokers are hoping there still will be a healthy appetite for such $1 billion-plus babies, including the jumbo Worldwide Plaza.
As we first reported last month, Cushman & Wake field will be shopping Park Avenue Tower and 850 Third Ave. Eastdil Secured is handling Tower 56, 527 Madison Ave., 1540 Broadway and Worldwide Plaza.
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On the GM Building front, Sheldon Solow is apparently holding off on his state lawsuit against Macklowe over the 2004 sale of the building, until he sees what happens with his claims at the federal level.
He’s already won a federal ruling allowing him to pursue several claims, including one of fraud.
