A Midwestern law firm is putting down roots at 601 Lex.
Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, which had a temporary floor at 499 Park Avenue, has signed a seven-year sublease for its first New York office at the former Citigroup Center (stripped of that name in 2008 following the bank’s fall from grace and $45 billion government handout).
The firm has taken 28,866 square feet, the entire 34th floor, subleasing from Kirkland and Ellis, which has a number of floors in the Boston Properties‘ building. The new lease significantly expands the firm’s New York office space with 250 lawyers in six locations nationwide, as it continues to grow. Speaking of recession-era shamings, Robins, Kaplan absorbed a number of lawyers from law firm Dreir LLP after the named partner was sentenced to 20 years in prison for fraud.
The move was prompted, quite simply, because “they had brought in a number of attorneys and they were out of space,” said Frederick Kane Marek of The Vortex Group, who repped the tenant. Asking rents on Lexington Avenue are in the mid-$40s.
lkusisto@observer.com
