Catch of the Day
Midtown lands huge seafood eatery
In the latest display of faith in postpandemic Manhattan, acclaimed Greek seafood restaurant Avra Estiatoro is making a splash in Midtown, The Post has learned.
Avra just signed a longterm lease for a huge 16,500square-foot eatery at 1271 Avenue of the Americas, the 48story Rockefeller Groupowned tower formerly known as the Time-Life Building. It will be Avra Group’s third Manhattan location, joining its hugely popular sister eateries on East 48th and East 60th streets.
The restaurant plans to open in the fall of 2021 for outdoor dining — and hopefully for indoors, although that will require Gov. Cuomo lifting the current indoor dining ban.
Talks for the space were first reported by The Post in February. But many real-estate and restaurant-world insiders assumed the deal was dead when the coronavirus emptied out much of Midtown.
Sixth Avenue’s corporate corridor is still quiet. Few workers have returned to offices, and outdoor dining — the only kind currently allowed — is scarce.
But Avra’s commitment shows that some companies believe the streets will soon be bustling with life again, said CBRE’s Eric Gelber, who repped the landlord with Rock Group’s Ed Guiltinan. Avra’s “commitment in such unprecedented times demonstrates its belief in the resiliency of New York,” he said. CBRE’s Gary Trock and Zack Parisi acted for Avra.
The Post in recent weeks has reported on other big city real-estate bets, including two new towers on 125th Street, a major new food hall on East 14th Street and jumbo office leases for Facebook and AIG.
The Avra lease marks another milestone for 1271 Sixth Ave., where Rockefeller Group spent $600 million on a top-to-bottom, inside-andout redesign — including a new, all-glass curtain wall facade and a public plaza.
The project helped lure a slew of new office tenants after Time Inc.’s move downtown in 2016 left the tower’s 1.8 million square feet vacant. It’s now home to Major League Baseball, H.I.G. Capital, Latham & Watkins, Bessemer Trust and Blank Rome.