CookFox is moving from Ladies’ Mile to Midtown.

The architectural firm has signed a 16-year deal for the full 17th floor of 18,250 square feet at 250 W. 57th St. at Broadway, where they will move in early 2017.

Mary Ann Tighe, Gerry Miovski, Brendan Herlihy and Arkady Smolyansky of CBRE represented the tenant, which appreciates the former Fisk Building’s architectural pedigree that includes Carèrre & Hastings as well as Shreve, Lamb & Blake.

The Empire State Realty Trust ownership was repped by Harry Blair of Cushman & Wakefield and had an asking rent of $60 per square foot.

A new lobby is in the works for the building, which is close to several of the tall 57th Street towers now heading skywards.

CookFox will be leaving its LEED Platinum offices at 641 Ave. of the Americas that includes a 3,600-square-foot planted terrace.

But its beekeeper will carefully tote its 50,000-plus bees north to enjoy nearby Central Park from two beautiful and accessible terraces that wrap around both Broadway and Eighth Avenue.

“We couldn’t afford to stay on Ladies’ Mile and had to move to Billionaire’s Row,” joked partner Rick Cook. “We believe in the connection to nature and it is beneficial towards having a productive workplace.”

Known for its sustainable design and buildings — like One Bryant Park — CookFox is now working on projects that include 300 Lafayette St. at Houston Street and City Point in Brooklyn.


Steve and Peter Levy’s Kamber Management finally closed on Tower 45 at 120 W. 45th St. for $365 million, or $800 a square foot, last month.

The Levys used a $150 million mortgage from MetLife plus their proceeds from the sale of 1407 Broadway, as well as the $111 million from the sale of their own 18-20 W. 33rd St. to the Carlyle Group with Kevin Chisholm and Bastien Broda’s 60 Guilders, to make a 1031 tax-free exchange into the Class A glass-and-steel upgrade.

The Tower 45 sale from SL Green Realty Corp. was marketed by Darcy Stacom and Bill Shanahan of CBRE along with Richard Baxter’s team at JLL.

The parties all declined comment or did not return requests for comment.


New York Stem Cell Foundation is gearing up to lease 40,600 square feet on the second and third floors of 619 W. 54th St., also known as the Movielab building.

The not-for-profit has applied for $12 million in tax-exempt revenue bonds through Build NYC, along with exemption from city and state mortgage recording taxes on the total $19.23 million project that will bring 62 jobs to the building — with another 18¹/₂ jobs to be added in the next three years.

Taconic Investment owns the building, which is represented by teams from JRT Realty Group and Cushman & Wakefield. According to CoStar, the 15,094-square-foot eighth floor is still available, with an asking rent of $43 a square foot.

The companies declined comment.


Real estate legend Julien J. Studley, 88, passed away this week. His eponymous company, founded in 1954, was the first to represent just commercial tenants and to issue a market report.

Born in Brussels in 1927, his family fled the Nazis through Europe to Cuba, where he learned diamond cutting. This skill ensured him a job when they came to New York in 1943.

He leased lofts on his lunch hour before working full time for Brett, Wyckoff, Potter & Hamilton.

Back in NYC after serving in the Korean War, he oversaw the assemblage of the block where the Citicorp Center was developed.

In 1997, he won the Louis Smadbeck Memorial Broker Recognition Award from the Real Estate Board of New York, where he was a governor from 1996 to 1998. His brokers bought him out in 2002 when he founded Studley New Vista Associates.

Studley was also involved with Lincoln Center, Project Return and other charities and arts groups.

A theater is named after him at SUNY New Paltz near the family farm where he and wife, Jane, hosted fiddle contests and broker parties.