2 floors of pure Deloitte
Consulting firm expands across the avenue to 1221 Sixth
I NTERNATIONAL consulting/ auditing giant Deloitte, in a major expansion mode, has leapt across booming Sixth Avenue.
Deloitte just signed a new lease for 98,000 square feet on the entire 39th and 40th floors at Rockefeller Group’s 1221 Sixth Ave.
It’s a pure growth move — the firm is keeping its 430,00-square-foot Big Apple headquarters at Tishman Speyer’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where it’s been since early 2011.
Since Rockefeller Group launched a major capital program for 1221 Sixth in 2013, some 1.5 million square feet in new and renewal leases have been signed.
The 2.5-million-square-foot tower is now 98 percent leased. The improvements included new entrances, side-street plazas, street-level façade and interior stonework.
Rockefeller Group senior VP/head of New York City leasing Ed Guilti
nan, who led negotiations with Deloitte, credited “connectivity” between 1221 and 30 Rock via Rock Center’s famous underground concourse as adding to the deal’s appeal. So did Deloitte tristate Managing Partner
Steve Gallucci, who cited “more space options for our professionals in a building that is easily accessed from our current location.”
Terms were not disclosed. Sources said the “ask” on 1221 Sixth’s highest floors is above $100 per square foot.
The upgrades to 1221 Sixth, once known as the McGraw-Hill Building, also helped draw insurance firm Endurance, which signed a new lease for 143,000 square feet in January. Rockefeller Group owns 55 percent of the tower, having sold 45 percent to China Investment Corp. for more than $1 billion last year.
Although Rockefeller Group declined to identify the broker for Deloitte, our sources said it was legendary Cushman & Wakefield dealmaker John Cefaly.
Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream, which started out of a yellow truck on city streets in 2008, is adding a third Manhattan store. The brand signed a lease for a 950-square-foot space at the Durst Organization’s 224 Front St., one of 11 restored, landmark, low-rise residential buildings on the block between Beekman Street and Peck Slip. Van Leeuwen already has two stores in Manhattan and two in Brooklyn. It makes all of its ice cream from scratch in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, “using ingredients perfected by nature, not by science.”