FNBNY has signed a 6,000-square-foot lease at Carnegie Hall Tower, one of Midtown’s so-called country-club office buildings known for its sweeping Central Park views and expensive rents.
FNBNY took a portion of the 550,000-square-foot building’s 52nd floor in the deal for rents close to space’s asking price of $115 per square foot a source told The Commercial Observer.
The bank initially came to the 60-story building last year, moving into about 3,500 square feet on the 14th floor. TF Cornerstone, the building’s landlord, has used the building’s lower floors as an incubator for tenants, charging lower rents for the space – in the $60s per square foot – in the hope that the clientele of boutique financial services tenants that predominantly comes to the building will take off there and graduate into bigger and higher priced offerings higher in the tower.
When that scenario played out for FNBNY, TF Cornerstone and its crackerjack leasing agent for the property, Newmark (NMRK) Grubb Knight Frank’s Matt Leon, made its expansion possible in the virtually fully leased building by arranging the availability on 52.
The private equity firm Fenway Partners, had previously leased the 6,000 square feet on that floor in a deal that ran through 2014, a short term expiration that made it difficult to sublease the space. To make the deal, TF Cornerstone canceled Fenway’s remaining term and signed a new seven year lease with FNBNY.
Though it is shedding 52, Fenway also occupies Carnegie Hall Tower’s entire 59th floor, a roughly 9,000-square-foot space it will continue to use as its Manhattan headquarters. A person familiar with Carnegie Hall Tower said that it isn’t unusual for tenants to grow and dispose of space over their tenancy at the property.
The transaction with FNBNY fit into the building’s reputation as a place where the building’s management creatively shuffles tenants around to create options for tenants there to expand and contract depending on their needs.
dgeiger@observer.com
