Durst's Lease-Up Plan for 1 WTC

With 18 months until 1 WTC opens and 1.4M SF left to lease there, Durst is going full bore in its marketing efforts, including in search of smaller tenants, likely including pre-builts. (Small tenant, they say? They should get that rescued dog from Oklahoma, as right now it's taken up residence in our hearts.)

Last week, we caught up with Durst's Rob Becker, who works with Cushman & Wakefield on lease-up at 1 WTC, which Durst and the Port Authority of NY & NJ are co-developing. He tells us he gave three tours two weeks ago and two this past week. Interested tenants range from 70-year-old businesses to startups and 20k SF to 100k. A 3M SF building (half already leased to powerhouse credit tenants Conde Nast, China Center, and GSA) can afford to house a variety of sizes and credit profiles, Rob says.

We snapped this view from the 48th floor of Durst's 1 Bryant Park, stretching three miles to Downtown. Rob tells us the leasing team will finalize a marketing plan for smaller tenants in 90 days. Interest is speeding up, as they always said it would, now that 1 WTC and the Calatrava-designed transit hub have taken shape. Rob also tells us 70% of interest has come from financial, professional services, and tech firms.

Rob and Durst's Jordan Barowitz (above) tell us they've got paper out on several tenants, though no more signed term sheets yet. Three big blocks (770k SF, 335k SF, and 200k SF) on 34 floors are available, but the landlords likely will allocate two floors to pre-builts and up to five for multi-tenant space. Rob says the 31k to 40k SF floorplates divide nicely into 10k SF units. That's a tenant pool Durst doesn't want to ignore if 1 WTC is to be a top tenant destination, Rob says, recalling that 80% of office leases in NYC are for less than 20k SF.

Durst occupies 1.5 floors in 1 Bryant Park, and Al Gore's Generation Investment Management has the other half floor, where we snapped this. We wouldn't expect anything less than LEED Platinum out of Al. Rob also tells us he's counting down the days until he's back to a carbon-free five-minute walk to work. He joined Durst, moved Downtown, and started working on 1 WTC a year ago, only to be relocated to Midtown by Sandy. He tells us he's now been a Midtown resident longer than he was a Downtown denizen. Just 41 more days of clicking your ruby red slippers and you can go home, Rob!