Jazz at Lincoln Center is moving its offices to 3 Columbus Circle where it has just signed a deal for 30,653 square feet, The Commercial Observer has learned.
The center is taking the bulk of the 750,000-square-foot building’s 12th floor in a 15-year lease. Asking rents at the property start in the $70s per square foot but those familiar with dealmaking at the building say taking rents are in the high $60s, a still-impressive rate for a building that a year ago struggled with vacancy.
The space is convenient for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s operations. The group’s main performing arts center, the Frederick P. Rose Hall, is just across the street from 3 Columbus Circle at the Time Warner Center.
Brian Waterman, a dealmaker at Newmark (NMRK) Knight Frank who is part of the NKF leasing team that handles agency work at 3 Columbus, said that the remaining portion of the 12th floor, a roughly 4,000 square foot pocket of space, would be turned into a pre-built office unit for a smaller tenant.
“We’re not just looking for a single user for the remaining blocks in the property,” Mr. Waterman said. “As this deal demonstrates, for the right tenants we’re willing to divide a space.”
Sometimes landlords are hesitant to do deals with tenants who will take only a portion of an office space but leave oddball scraps behind that are harder to fill.
Since the large commercial office REIT SL Green recapitalized the building, becoming a partner of Joe Moinian, the previous owner, leases have begun to get signed at the once heavily empty property. The biggest turnaround happened last year, when the advertising firm Young & Rubicam bought 214,000 square feet at the base of the building and leased 125,000 square feet more for its New York headquarters.
Mr. Waterman said that more deals are in the works. He said that a tenant is considering a nearly 70,000 square foot lease on floors 15 and 16, though he declined to specify who the potential taker was or what industry they are in. The 17th floor is also available and so are smaller, tower floors, 21-23.
“There’s the ability to put together about 80,000 square feet on the higher floors,” Mr. Waterman said.
In addition to Mr. Waterman, NKF executives Scott Klau, Erik Harris and Jimmy Kuhn work on the property as leasing agents for SL Green (SLG). SL Green executives, led by the company’s director of leasing Steve Durels, also oversee leasing there.
Dgeiger@observer.com
