Irish eyes will be crying in their pints next week over the demise of both Patrick Conway’s Pub and the neighboring Annie Moore’s.
The rival Irish pubs have been given the heave-ho by SL Green Realty Corp., which will be demolishing the entire block from East 43rd Street, where the bars are located between Madison and Vanderbilt avenues, to 42nd Street, where they will develop the office building, One Vanderbilt.
Both bars were bought out of their long-term leases by SLG.
Ed Creed says he will shutter the stained-glass-filled Patrick Conway’s at the end of April. He is yet to locate another spot for the 41-year-old bar in what is now a high retail rent area. “I will focus on the closing first,” he said. “We’ve had a good run.”
Tom Ryan, who owns Annie Moore’s at 50 E. 43rd St., said they have known for several years that SL Green had purchased the whole block and was going to develop it. “We cut a deal with SL Green and they were gentlemen,” Ryan said.
Ryan has already opened a second joint, Blackwell’s Restaurant & Pub at 150 E. 47th St., in another SLG building. But he is yet to find a spot to park the Annie Moore’s moniker.
“Annie Moore’s is an institution,” added Ryan, who will give back his keys after 31 years, also at the end of April. The bar was named for the young Irish immigrant who on Jan. 1, 1892, became the first person to pass through Ellis Island, receiving a $10 gold coin for the honor.
Cushman & Wakefield’s global retail guru, Gene Spiegelman, who does not represent either pub, says the low vacancy rates make it hard to find spaces on the less-expensive side streets.
“The best use is for food and beverage to accommodate the needs of the offices,” he said. “But each block as you go up toward Rock Center gets more expensive.”
MdeAS Architects, led by Dan Shannon, has been chosen to redevelop and reposition 1460 Broadway.
The 16-story property has been co-owned by Himmel + Meringoff and The Swig Co. since last fall, which is also when Moed de Armas & Shannon rebranded itself as “MdeAS.”
The 215,000 square-foot mixed-use office tower near Bryant Park sits along the new Times Square South Broadway pedestrian promenade.
Just down the Broadway promenade, OnDeck Capital, a company that provides small-businesses loans through proprietary software analysis, is adding 79,000 square feet at 1400 Broadway to occupy about 117,000 square feet.
Paul Ippolito of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank represented OnDeck in this headquarters expansion.
His NGKF colleagues, Scott Klau, Erik Harris and Neil Rubin, represented the Empire State Realty Trust along with its in-house executive Keith A. Cody and head of leasing, Tom Durels.
OnDeck has already put $2 billion into the economy through small-business loans since it landed at 1400 Broadway in 2007. Asking rents are now in the high $50s to low $60s per foot.
We flushed out another deal: The iconic bathroom toilet and plumbing company, TOTO USA, will move its gallery and corporate offices from Soho to 7,865 square feet at 20 W. 22nd St. in the Flatiron District.
Known for its low-flow, high-design commodes, Toto will have a triplex with 4,276 square feet of ground-floor showrooms, 1,362 square feet of storage on the lower level and 2,227 square feet for offices and showrooms space on the second floor.
Mark Tergesen and Robert Kempner of ABS Partners brought the tenant to the building, which they also represent with ABS colleagues’ Jason Fein, Robert Finkelstein and Dean Valentino. Asking rents were in the low- $100s per foot for the ground and in the mid-$70s per square foot for the second floor.
The Williamsburg project known as Development Associates Buff for the color of its facades and owned by a partnership that includes the Kraus family was misidentified as the Kraus-owned Bedford Gardens in my article last week.
The addresses for the Buff buildings that now owe $75.8 million in back taxes and years of accumulated interest, however, were all correct. Bedford Gardens, which a Kraus spokesman said has up-to-date taxes, is owned just by Kraus.
