New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman may soon be playing square-footage footsie with Chinese real estate owners as he targets a move to roughly 375,000 square feet at 28 Liberty.
The AG’s offices are now located in 425,000 square feet at Larry Silverstein’s 120 Broadway. With a lease up in 2018, Scott Gottlieb of CBRE has been quietly leading a search for technologically advanced space with access to the Lower Manhattan courts.
The short list already included possibly renewing or moving to Norman Sturner’s renovated 180 Maiden Lane or 28 Liberty, now owned and being entirely renovated by the Chinese-based Fosun International.
But now, sources say the AG is far along and close to the finish line on a deal at 28 Liberty.
When briefed on the possible lease, real estate executives had mixed feelings. “How can the president of the United States decide not to stay at the Chinese-owned Waldorf Astoria but the attorney general of the state of New York, who prosecutes all sorts of sensitive cases, put his offices in a Chinese-owned office tower?” were the basic sentiments of several who requested anonymity to avoid any backlash.
Others scoffed and even laughed at the idea that the building would be bugged and said the thought merely reflected a current bias against the Chinese. “If everyone worried about every foreign-owned or -financed building in New York, there would be nowhere to move,” pointed out one executive.
