Law Firm Leaving Midtown For 180K SF At 3 World Trade Center
Silverstein Properties has scored a major new tenant at 3 World Trade Center, the 80-story skyscraper that was the most recent tower to open at the Lower Manhattan complex.
Law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has signed a 15-year lease for 180K SF at the 2.5M SF building, agreeing to occupy floors 51 through 54 in early 2024. The firm is relocating and expanding its Manhattan office from Midtown, where it leased 110K SF at 601 Lexington Ave.
“I am delighted to welcome Freshfields to the World Trade Center and to Lower Manhattan,” Larry Silverstein, Silverstein’s chairman, said in a release. “This neighborhood has proven itself time and time again as one of the best places in the country to live, work and visit.”
Silverstein’s 3 World Trade opened in 2018 with 40% of the space pre-leased. Four years later, the Freshfields deal brings the building to approximately 90% leased, and its tenants include McKinsey; stock exchange platform IEX; GroupM, which has nearly 700K SF; and Uber, which leases 220K SF. Hana, CBRE’s coworking arm that later was merged into Industrious, selected the building for its first location in 2020.
Manhattan’s office market is experiencing historically high vacancy at the moment, and Downtown has been the part of the city hit hardest — its availability was at 20% last month, per Colliers. This deal will be a boost for the market, however, and comes a day after another major lease was revealed.
KPMG announced Tuesday that it is taking around 450K SF at Brookfield’s Two Manhattan West, one of the biggest office deals signed this year. While Freshfields' list appears to be an expansion, KPMG is trimming 40% off its footprint in Midtown with the consolidation.
Silverstein’s Jeremy Moss arranged the Freshfields deal for the landlord in-house, alongside CBRE's Mary Ann Tighe, Ken Meyerson, Adam Foster, Evan Haskell, Steve Eynon, Caroline Merck and Rob Hill. Freshfields was represented by Savills’ David Goldstein and Jarod Stern.
