With more than 1.05 million square feet worth of leases signed in December, Tishman Speyer Properties is on a lease roll.
As Post colleague Steve Cuozzo reported yesterday, CB Richard Ellis renewed its 125,000 feet at the MetLife Building, and, as we reported earlier, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher expanded to 260,000 feet in the same building.
Now we can add that Simon & Schuster extended its 292,000 square foot presence at 1230 Avenue of the Americas for five more years to the end of 2019. The book publisher has been a tenant in the Rockefeller Center building since 1976.
Simon & Schuster was repped by CBRE’s Scott Gottlieb, Michael Laginesta, Andrew Sussman and Michael Wellen, while Tishman’s Calvin Farley and Ted Koltis represented the owners.
Rob Speyer, president and co-chair of Tishman, wouldn’t discuss the tenant’s rents but noted, “Rents are back to 2005 [levels].”
Back then, rents were averaging about $55, with better buildings getting more and trophy towers pulling in more than $100 a foot.
Additionally, designer Michael Kors renewed and expanded at 11 W. 42nd St. for 15 years from about 62,000 feet to more than 90,000 feet beginning in 2012. The firm has been located there since 2003.
Kors was represented in the transaction by Glenn Markman and Danielle Zimbaro of Cushman & Wakefield, while Tishman’s Greg Conen and Farley represented the building.
“We were able to get our hands on space that was contiguous,” said Steven Wechsler of Tishman. “Michael Kors loves the building and needed more space and came to us early.”
Meanwhile, over in New Jersey, Tishman bagged a 10-year, 225,000 square foot lease renewal for The Prudential Insurance Co. of America at 200 Wood Avenue South in Metro Park at the Amtrak stop in Iselin/Woodbridge Township, NJ. That deal was for more than 1 million square feet.
David Arena, Michael Gottlieb, Jeff Kolodkin and Marty Cottingham of Grubb & Ellis repped Prudential, while Farley, Blythe Kinsler and Todd Silverman repped Tishman.
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Control of a ready-to-sell condo conversion in Battery Park City has been transferred to the lender.
Documents show that Buttonwood Real Estate and Bonjour Holdings transferred 333 Rector Place to its lender, iStar, which had made more than $140 million in loans on the $170 million project.
Sources tell us that the sponsors completed the entire gut renovation, which changed 228 apartments into 174 family size units.
The “friendly” agreement converts their interests into a minority position. A nursery school, the Italian restaurant Samantha’s and other retail tenants remain open.
No one returned calls for comment.
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Guided by a CB Richard Ellis team led by Bob Alexander, UBS is looking everywhere for more than 1 million square feet of office space, but the space they are replacing comes up in 2013 in a Hartz building in Weekhawken, NJ, and sources tell us the financial firm is unlikely to jump the river into much more expensive Manhattan-centric space.
Of course, if some desperate owner makes them a deal they can’t refuse, combined with city and state incentives, the bank might break out the rowboats.
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As Post colleague Cuozzo predicted back in October when its height was clipped to 1,050 feet from 1,250 feet, don’t expect to see the cool new Jean Nouvel-designed museum tower on West 53rd Street soon.
New documents signed with the Museum of Modern Art developer Hines Interests has until June 30, 2013, to either close on or ter minate its agreement with MoMA, and also has two more one- year options after that.
And the “agree ment” comes before the construction.
MoMA and Hines also just paid $80 a square foot, or $10.88 million, to the landmarked University Club across the street for 136,000 feet of development rights for the tower. [email protected]
