When Elephants Fly: Dumbo Gets Two Macho Sports Tenants
By Laura Kusisto February 18, 2011 1:50 pm
reprints
The day Dumbo gets an extreme sports tenant will be the day elephants fly, or so we once thought.
Tough Mudder (“not your average lame-ass mud run or spirit-crushing ‘endurance’ road race,” says its Web site) has signed a one-year lease for 2,214 square feet of office space at 55 Washington Street. Trilogy Lacrosse has taken 1,072 square feet in the building for three years.
“We typically get creative tenants,” said Two Trees‘ Caroline Pardo on the phone with The Observer–apparently still a bit surprised to have scored not one, but two macho office tenants. “I’m more than happy to give you their contact info. and you could ask them…”
But in the end the lovely Ms. Pardo could come up with a few reasons: “Rents are reasonable,” she said. “There’s a lot going on here. It’s a laidback environment, with a lot of creative people, and it’s across from the park.”
Rents range from $23 to $27 a foot. “In Lower Manhattan you can find something in the high-$20s,” said Ms. Pardo. But, she also noted, “Dumbo has its charm,” thanks to the “park, the cobblestoned streets. It has less of the bustle of Manhattan.”
Vacancy in the building is now at 4 percent, compared to 10 percent last year. “It’s been an incredible year,” said Ms. Pardo. Just in case the tough guys (and gals) have a sensitive side, Ms. Pardo recently nabbed the neighborhood’s first florist for the retail space downstairs, The Observer reported.
Elizabeth Cottrill represented the landlord in-house in both transactions. City Connections represented Tough Mudder. No broker repped Trilogy Lacrosse.
lkusisto@observer.com
