Ready to Rockefeller
Mystery demo on West 48th Street
ALTHOUGH it won’t come overnight, more big change is on the way to West 48th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues. My colleague Lois
Weiss was first to report in June that Extell has teamed up with Hard Rock International to develop a 445-room hotel on the block’s north side, where a vacant parking garage and several storefronts will soon be demolished.
Now, the south side is inching toward its own, eventual transformation.
Rockefeller Group, which owns much of the south block front west of the Cort Theatre, has filed plans to demolish 148 W. 48th, a six-story building which until a few weeks ago housed a large GMC garage and a Num Pang sandwich shop.
The company controls 160 feet of precious total frontage on the West 48th Street block including three other parcels.
The Rockers have yet to file demo plans for the other buildings, which are mostly vacant. The company, which owns nearby skyscrapers 1221 and 1271 Sixth Ave. and 747 Seventh Ave., has for several years mulled its strategy for the West 48th Street assemblage, part of which runs through-block to West 47th Street.
Rockefeller Group paid $62.5 million for the West 48th Street garage site in 2008 — the same year it also paid $25 million for 157 W. 47th St., currently the site of the Night Hotel.
There was no official comment from Rockefeller Group. A source said, “Nothing is imminent” and the garage demolition is partly to avoid “unnecessary upkeep on the site.”
While the planned restaurant from Major Food Group’s Rich Torrisi and
Mario Carbone to replace The Four Seasons hogs the spotlight at Aby
Rosen’s Seagram Building, office leasing at the 38story, 820,000-square-foot landmark has quietly bucked the trend of companies defecting from Park Avenue.
Some 77,000 square feet of leases have been signed at the Mies van der Rohe-designed Modernist masterpiece — officially 375 Park Ave. — since summer’s end, including 17,000 square feet last week. The most recent deals were for JSF Capital (a new lease), Servcorp (extension and expansion) and Brant Point Investment Management (extension and renewal).
They were preceded by new leases for Carlson Capital LP and L1 Health, h, and extensions and/ or expansions for Strategic Asset Services and Invest industrial. Also, powerhouse law firm Fried Frank, which is throwing its heavily attended holiday party at Cipriani 42nd Street Tuesday night, renewed its uptown satellite lease for 11,703 square feet last summer.
But the most romantic deal might be the smallest. Beer distributor Hans Holterbosch Inc. recently renewed on 2,191 square feet. It wouldn’t be worth a mention except that the firm has been at Seaggram since 1964, when Lyndon B. Johnson was president. Asking rents at Seagram run to $185 a square foot, an astronomical figure for a nearly 60-year-old property. The tower’s leasing team includes JLL’s Matthew Astrachan, Jonathan Fanuzzi, Dan Turkewitz and Kip Orban. According to AJ Camhi, head of leasing for Rosen’s RFR Realty, 375 Park is about 95 percent occupied and advanced talks are going on with more tenants.
Camhi attributed its enduring appeal in part to recent capital upgrades that included a new executive lounge and creation of a tenants-only terrace.
He also confirmed Page Six’s recent scoop that Landmark will be the new name for the former Four Seasons space, which he said will officially be called The Landmark Rooms — Seagram Building.