“Flight to high quality” doesn’t imply that workplace tenants in right this moment’s challenged market invariably gravitate to brand-new towers.
The phenomenon contains demand for properties constructed within the historical twentieth Century which are “new” due to a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} of reinvestment.
Vornado Realty Trust spent $450 million to revamp and reposition the once-obsolescent workplace tower that’s now often known as PENN 1 on Seventh Avenue between West thirty first and thirty third streets.
The transformation of the Nineteen Seventies-vintage, 2.5-million square-foot property has steadily paid off in new workplace leases.
Now, neighborhood sources say, the constructing has scored its largest monetary providers lease because the redevelopment started.
We’re instructed that Canaccord Genuity Group signed for 75,000 sq. ft on two flooring.
Our brokerage-world buddies stated the asking hire was $103 per sq. foot, an enormous leap over the mid-$60s Vornado was asking simply two years in the past.
Canaccord, which via subsidiaries focuses on wealth administration and capital-markets investments, will transfer from 535 Madison Ave. and 33 Whitehall St. subsequent yr, we’re instructed.
The deal brings new, renewal and growth leases at PENN 1 to 800,000 sq. ft up to now two years.
The most up-to-date workplace lease previous to Canaccord’s was for 36,000 sf for a Samsung unit. Other main tenants embody Dell, Empire Heath, Cisco, Hartford Insurance, Jacobs Engineering, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo.
Approximately 370,000 sq. ft stay out there, in keeping with on-line databases.
In addition to new triple-pane home windows, enhancements at PENN 1 embody greater than 160,000 sq. ft of “WorkLife” facilities on the primary three flooring. Among them are a new wellness middle known as Life Time that we reported just lately.
There can be full-service restaurant The Landing and 100,000 sq. ft of versatile workspace and convention services. A brand new Roberta’s satellite tv for pc of the Brooklyn authentic additionally signed a lease for a small Vornado constructing connected to PENN 1.
PENN 1 is half of a two-building “campus” with an upgraded PENN 2, which is to open by the tip of the yr.
The properties additionally boast improved entrances to subways and Penn Station. They’re a part of Vornado’s $2 billion general upgrades to its Penn-area buildings.
