Third Point, the multi-billion dollar hedge fund managed by Daniel S. Loeb, is renewing its office and expanding at the high-end Park Avenue office tower Lever House in what would be one of the most expensive leases of the year on a per square foot basis.
The company, according to sources, occupies two floors and is renewing its hold on that space while adding another floor in a roughly 32,000-square-foot deal with rents around a whopping $140 per square foot.
Third Point, which has produced returns according to published reports as high as 40 percent in 2010 (but appeared to finish flat last year), occupies the nearly 300,000-square-foot building’s 18th and 19th floors. It wasn’t clear by press time which floor the company will expand onto, but the 16th floor at Lever House has been one of the few spaces available at the property in recent years and is a possible opening for the expansion.
Few companies have paid a rental rate as high this year for a space as sizable. The conditions that would produce such an exorbitant rate in fact appear to be on hold as leasing activity has dipped and vacancy and rents have remained largely stagnant. Sluggish economic growth coupled with continuing fallout from the debt crisis in Europe have even sparked concerns that the city’s biggest space using industry, the financial sector, will be sidelined from making expansionary leasing decisions for months to come, hurting the health of the overall market.
The deal with Third Point would appear to demonstrate that the well heeled are still willing to pay for the right space. Lever House is a landmark building on Park Avenue and is known as one of the city’s most recognizable and prestigious office addresses.
Alex Chudnoff, a leasing executive at Jones Lang LaSalle, represented the company in the deal. Mr. Chudnoff could not be reached for comment. RFR Realty, the landlord of the building (which recently sold 90 Fifth Avenue for over $800 per square foot) also couldn’t be reached. A spokeswoman at Third Point didn’t return calls or emails.
