By Al Barbarino 12/17/12 8:00am

Sales Beat

104 West 40th Street

Princeton International Properties Pays More Than $100M for 104 West 40th Street

Princeton International Properties has purchased 104 West 40th Street from Savanna for just over $100 million, The Commercial Observer has learned.

The 210,000-square-foot Midtown Manhattan office building is located steps from Bryant Park on 40th street and Broadway.

Savanna purchased the 20-story glass and steel landmark in 2010, refurbishing it with renovated elevators, building systems, an improved lobby – and a strategy of re-leasing the vacant space at market rents. Read More

By Ian Thomas 9/19/12 7:30am

2012 Owners Magazine

Illustration Courtesy Ed Johnson.

Does Size Matter? In an Industry Filled with Goliaths, Davids Abound

On a balmy July afternoon, a few members of SL Green’s management staff pushed their way through the revolving doors of 711 Third Avenue, the company’s 500,000-square-foot, 20-floor tower between 44th and 45th Streets.

They passed through the gallery-style lobby, framed by both Greek Thassos white and De Savoi grey-blue marble, carrying a few boxes. An original Hans Hoffman mosaic mural, designed in 1956, adorned the hallway farther down.

They sliced open the boxes and put on green aprons emblazoned with the firm’s stylized logo—and so the ice cream party for the building’s tenants began.

In a market full of haves and have-nots, there are benefits to being the biggest fish in the pond. Read More

By Daniel Geiger 6/26/12 12:44pm

Lease Beat

104 West 40th Street

104 West 40th Street: Midtown South Comes to Midtown

If an office building can look and feel like it’s in Midtown South even if it isn’t, can’t it benefit from the leasing boom that has overtaken that market?

That was the premise underscoring 104 West 40th Street’s recent deal with the company Vox Media.

The building’s leasing agents, Paul Amrich and Neil King, who are both executives at CBRE, recommended that the property’s landlord, Savanna, skip the carpeting and the drop ceilings that are typical to Midtown office installations. The striped down aesthetic they created instead gave the property a loft-like ambiance akin to Midtown South and convinced Vox to take the building’s entire ninth floor and part of eight in a deal totaling 16,884 square feet. Read More