THE downtown law firm of Holland & Knight is thisclose to a move uptown through an 80,000 foot sublease from another law firm, Clifford Chance.
Clifford Chance has 380,000 square feet of space at 31 W. 52nd St. — once Deutsche Bank’s headquarters — and is leased through May 2024. Holland & Knight would sublease the newly built-out 11th, 12th and 13th floors that, according to CoStar Group data, were added to the market earlier this year.
A marketing brochure said Clifford Chance wanted to sublease for five years or less — it wanted to keep its own expansion options open — but a law firm like Holland & Knight could never make such a short-term move. Recognizing the current economic climate, Clifford Chance eventually agreed to a long-term sublease that ends at the same time as the Clifford Chance lease.
Holland & Knight will be leaving three floors totaling 118,910 feet at 195 Broadway.
Due to extremely large “old world” offices and other loss factors, H&K will be “right-sizing” into the smaller uptown space.
“They are moving out of a cruise ship and moving into a submarine,” laughed one source of the very efficient Clifford Chance floors.
Downtown building owner L&L Holdings is already listing its available space for $45 a foot. The uptown deal was made in the mid-$60s a foot and needs just minimal work to accommodate the law firm.
Holland & Knight was repped by Ted Rotante, Michael Cohen and Andy Roos of FirstService Williams, while Clifford Chance had the CB Richard Ellis team of Laurence Briody, Stuart Eisenkraft, Brad Needleman and Andrew Sussman on its side.
None of the individual parties involved would comment on the deal.
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The purchase and 10-year leaseback of the Class A, 500,000 foot HSBC headquarters at 452 Fifth Ave. is in Joseph Cayre‘s court.
Brokers at Jones Lang LaSalle have told the other bidders it’s “now his to lose.”
Rumored pricing is in the $310 million range, which comes to $620 a foot for the 1985-era building overlooking Bryant Park.
Cayre’s firm, Midtown Equities, is said to be teamed with money from the Middle East.
He already owns 200 Montague St. in Brooklyn — another former HSBC/Republic Bank building — and sources say that being a large depos itor with the bank helped him win the deals.
Neither he nor JLL folks returned calls.
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Howard Kesseler of Newmark Knight Frank represented Claremont Prepatory School in its long search for middle and high school expansion space that culminated last week with a 200,180 foot lease for the top floors and roof deck of 25 Broadway.
“This space has enormous appeal due to its location,” Kesseler told us last week.
Sources said an earlier proposal for 225,000 feet at the Sapir Organization’s 100 Church St. fell apart when that building’s lender would not approve the deal.
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A Newmark Knight Frank team was also responsible for marketing Mt. Sinai’s plan to sell 1212 Fifth Ave. to the Durst Fetner Residential group and develop a new residential tower.
The deal morphed over the course of the two years, but Jimmy Kuhn, David Noonan and Jennifer Schwartzman were the brokers.
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The documents from the transfer of Worldwide Plaza have been filed. The deed was signed on July 22 for $590.3 million, and the mortgage associated with the George Comfort & Sons-led buying group is $470 million.
