This Week’s N.Y. Deal Sheet
Commercial real estate activity is kicking back into gear in New York City as tech and financial firms continued seeking out Class-A office space.
TOP LEASES
Law firm O’Melveny & Myers LLP has signed a 142K SF lease at the Paramount Group’s 1301 Avenue of the Americas, Paramount announced Tuesday. The law firm is taking floors 17-20 after current tenant Credit Agricole’s lease expires in February 2023. It plans to move into the building in either 2024 or 2025. JLL’s Frank Doyle, David Kleiner, Clark Finney, Andrew Coe, Peter Brindley, Doug Neye and Sean Kirk worked on behalf of the landlord on the 15-year lease, while CBRE’s Lynn Williams and Jeff Welch and JLL’s Lisa Kiell and Randy Abend represented the law firm in the deal, which carried an asking rent of $84 per SF, Commercial Observer reported. O'Melveny & Myers is moving from 7 Times Square, where it once occupied more than 300K SF but has shrunk down to 150K SF in recent years, per CO.
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Cybersecurity firm Darktrace has signed a 27K SF lease at Brookfield Properties’ One Manhattan West, the landlord announced. Darktrace’s long-term lease on the 47th floor brings the recently delivered, 67-story, 2.1M SF skyscraper to 98% leased. Brookfield had in-house representation from Duncan McCuaig, David Caperna and PJ Masse, in addition to Cushman & Wakefield’s Howard Cross, Nicholas Dysenchuk, Josh Kuriloff, Matthias Li, Robert Lowe, Bruce Mosler, John Santora and Ethan Silverstein. The cybersecurity firm was represented by CBRE in the transaction.
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RFR has secured a new tenant for the Seagram Building at 375 Park Ave. Global alternative asset management firm Blue Owl Capital signed a 138K SF lease in the recently renovated building, which has asking rents at $200 per SF or higher, according to a release. Blue Owl currently has space at 399 Park Ave., according to reporting from Bloomberg, just a few blocks away. RFR’s AJ Camhi and Paul Milunec handled the transaction in-house alongside JLL’s Peter Riguardi, Paul Glickman, Cynthia Wasserberger and Ben Bass, Commercial Observer reported. Cushman & Wakefield’s Mark Weiss represented Blue Owl.
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RXR Realty has signed private equity giant Carlyle Group to a 41K SF lease at its 340 Madison Ave. property, according to a release. The firm is taking the eighth-floor space for 10 years in a deal brokered by Steve Rotter and Joe Messina of JLL on the tenant side and JLL's Paul Glickman, Matthew Astrachan, Cynthia Wasserberger and Dan Turkewitz on the landlord's side, alongside RXR's in-house leasing team of Andrew Ackerman and Alexandra Budd. Carlyle leases 195K SF for its new headquarters at SL Green's One Vanderbilt supertall, but it needed the extra space, partly because of the next deal on this list.
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Related’s 50 Hudson Yards has a new tenant ahead of its planned opening later this year, Bloomberg reports. Truist — the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank that emerged from the merger of BB&T and SunTrust — signed a 100K SF lease to relocate its Manhattan offices from 711 Fifth Ave., Commercial Observer reported.
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Financial tech and services firm FIS Global has signed a 25K SF, 15-year lease at One Vanderbilt, according to a release. The 1.7M SF office building is now 99% leased, with FIS Global taking the entire 62nd floor. Daniel Katcher of Newmark and Robert Alexander, Ryan Alexander, Alex D’Amario and Emily Chabrier of CBRE represented the landlord in the deal.
TOP SALES
The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has purchased a total of $485M worth of office condos over the past two months, Crain’s New York Business reports. The hospital announced Monday that it had bought 414K SF for $300.5M at SL Green’s Lipstick Building, in addition to eight office condos it bought at 330 East 62nd St. in August for $185M. The acquisitions are part of the hospital’s strategy of purchasing spaces it has been leasing as leases expire, although the hospital declined to disclose how it is funding its purchases, per Crain’s.
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Venture capital firm AlleyCorp has purchased six-story Little Italy property 174 Mott St. from Continental Equities and German investor Juergen Ostertag for $41M, property records show. Continental had been in possession of the property since 2006, when it acquired the former manufacturing site for $8.9M. Ostertag later acquired a 25% stake in the property, and the pair have been looking to sell the building since 2019, Commercial Observer reported. AlleyCorp’s plans for the property are unclear, as is whether the building’s new owner has secured a retail tenant.
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Brooklyn developer Joel Schwartz has sold several multifamily properties in the Bushwick and Williamsburg neighborhoods for a total of $27.7M, Crain’s New York reports. Corner Street Capital purchased 99 North Fourth St. and 58, 175 and 177 Palmetto St., with 99 North Fourth St. alone selling for $12M, according to PincusCo.
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New York University has acquired 3 MetroTech Center from JPMorgan for $122M, The Real Deal reported. The university already owns neighboring 5 MetroTech, which is home to its Tandon School of Engineering. Its new purchase, a 10-story, Class-A office building, was vacated by JPMorgan in December 2020. A 2018 analysis by TRD found that NYU owned at least 12.8M SF of real estate across 110 properties in NYC.
TOP FINANCING DEALS
Carmel Partners has landed a $364.8M loan from Wells Fargo for a Long Island City development site the California developer acquired in March, The Real Deal reports. Carmel Partners filed plans for a 66-story, 900-unit apartment building at 43-30 and 43-16 24th St.when it paid $200M for the site, reportedly making it the second-most-expensive development site ever purchased in Queens. It’s unclear if Carmel’s plans for the site have changed since the expiration of the 421a tax abatement in June.
