The CUNY School of Professional Studies has signed a nearly 70,000-square-foot lease at 116 West 32nd Street.
The space will be used as classrooms and executive offices for the SPS, which offers a number of undergraduate and masters degree programs and continuing studies courses.
CUNY will take floors one through four and 10 in the the over 220,000-square-foot building for 15 years at rents in the $40s per square foot.
Jeffrey Rosenblatt, an executive with Newmark (NMRK) Grubb Knight Frank, represented the building’s landlord in the deal, Pan Am Equities, a group controlled by the Manocherian family, which is a well known real estate owner in the city.
Reached in his office, Mr. Rosenblatt confirmed the deal and explained that CUNY was drawn to the property because it could access a separate lobby at the property located on 31st Street. As part of the deal, the university will receive exclusive use of that entrance way, which will allow it to segregate its operations from the rest of the building’s office tenants.
“The fact that they could have the lobby for their own dedicated use was very attractive to them,” Mr. Rosenblatt said. “They’ll be able to brand the building on that side and they won’t have to worry about having students confused about which floor to go to and end up on an office floor. This is a great layout for them.”
CUNY will use the base floors for classrooms and the 10th floor as executive offices.
The lower space at 116 West 32nd Street became vacant last summer when the Department of Parole relocated from the property.
The 10th floor was a more recent opening, created when Fiserv, a company that provides software and technology for the financial industry, decided to downsize at the property. The firm previously leased both the ninth and 10th floors but decided to renew only the former, a 13,500-square-foot space and shed the latter, allowing Mr. Rosenblatt to offer it to CUNY. Fiserv is currently in the process of extending its lease for the ninth floor.
“The timing of everything worked out,” Mr. Rosenblatt said.
Howard Kesseler and Jimmy Kuhn, executives at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, represented CUNY in the deal.
