Pride of Park Ave.
Stahl Org.’s No. 277 hits 98% occupancy
PARK Avenue landlords are tooting their horns after we reported last week that Sixth Avenue regained a narrow edge over Park in terms of the least percentage of available space.
The Stahl Organization’s 277 Park Ave. between East 47th and 48th streets boasts of nailing down an unreported 175,000 square feet of new and expansion leases in the past six months — bringing the 1.85 million-square-foot tower to 98% leased.
The largest transactions were a 50,000-square-foot new lease for Sumitomo Corp. of the Americas; a 50,000-square-foot expansion by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. on top of its existing 266,000 square feet; and 47,000 square feet for Arsenal Capital Management.
Other, smaller new leases were signed by ERM Engineering & Consulting, Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and an unidentified international bank.
Cushman & Wakefield’s Mark P. Boisi, Bryan Boisi and Stephen Bellwood represented Stahl in all the transactions. They reflect Park Avenue’s sustained surge in a wildly uneven office market.
While both Park and Sixth avenues’ new and mid-20th Century towers have relatively low availability of around 11%, Manhattan’s overall rate is 20% — and it’s as high as 30% in parts of town, including the Wall Street area.
Stahl’s success at 277 Park has much to do with the $120 million it spent to “reposition” the 1964-vintage property, which was originally home to Chemical Bank.
Major upgrades include a new Park Avenue lobby with a 30-foot ceiling, a redesigned Lexington side lobby, a tenants’ fitness center on the ground floor and restaurants from popular chef David Burke. “It’s the whole megillah that tenants expect,” Mark Boisi said.
Asking rents at 277 Park range between $100 and $120 per square foot. JP Morgan Chase is the largest current tenant.
Fulton flop
Westfield Corp., which wants out of its Fulton Center lease with the MTA, is probably right that crime and poor security are chasing out some retail tenants.
But it’s also true that the subway station’s doughnut-domed “shopping” atrium at Broadway and Fulton Street has been a flop since it opened in 2014, long before the COVID-era uptick in crime.
Parent company Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield said in 2022 that it planned to unload most or all of its US shopping centers. The Fulton fiasco would fit right in with that strategy.
Retail brokers who didn’t want to be named blamed Westfield for bungling store leasing at Fulton since the get-go — as it has on a larger scale at the World Trade Center, where it owns the retail space in the Oculus and office towers where oodles of storefronts remain vacant.
Westfield’s policy of not hiring local retail brokers alienated the talent it needed to lure even middle-market stores to Fulton, they say.
Half of what’s called Level 2 — one of four floors connected by a confusing maze of stairs, escalators and an elevator — has been vacant since the opening.
Shake Shack is the building’s only large retail tenant. The rest are fast-food spots like Krispy Kreme, Auntie Anne’s and, until it recently bolted, Haagen-Dazs — like in a suburban mall “food court.”
Despite the retail crisis, Westfield has an apparent cash cow above the stores — flexible workspace provider Industrious, which “partnered” with Westfield in 2022. Its 50,000 square feet are more than all the stores combined.
When we took the elevator to the mysterious fourth floor, Industrious employees twice tried to chase us from the public landing outside its door. Maybe they have something to hide.
Casa Cipriani
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Casa Cipriani, the wildly popular (with its members) private hotel and boutique hotel, appears to float above the landmarked Battery Maritime Building overlooking New York Harbor downtown.
But there’s money behind the magic. The pleasure palace’s owners — Cipriani, Midtown Equities and Centaur Properties — just secured a $103 million refinancing of the property, which opened in 2021. Walker & Dunlop arranged the CMBS loan from Citigroup, JPMorgan and Argentic.
The long-term fixed-rate loan replaces a shorter-term, floatingrate bridge loan.