645 Madison Avenue has reeled in another high priced lease despite a flat rental market in the city that has left most landlords with little leeway to bump up rates.
Marble Arch Investments has taken the building’s entire 17th floor, a nearly 7,000 square foot space for seven years. The building’s landlord TF Cornerstone was asking for rents north of $100 per square foot for the floor and just about got them in the lease negotiation, which, as is typical for such talks, usually sees rates drop as tenants and their leasing reps work to finagle a better deal.
The company, a small investment firm, will receive a build-out constructed by TF Cornerstone as part of the transaction that will mesh the kind of open layout that has become popular in the modern workplace with a more traditional line of perimeter offices.
The lease is one of the first full floor leases to get signed in the 150,000-square-foot, 22-story building in recent years. About five years ago, TF Cornerstone made a number of capital improvements to the property such as a new lobby and elevator systems and brought the building to full occupancy. Now, as some of those deals expire, space is opening up again.
An agency team led by Matt Leon, a leasing executive at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, handles deals at the tower on behalf of TF Cornerstone, though TF Cornerstone’s leasing director Chip Sealy also participates in negotiations.
Daniel Madison, a dealmaker at Newmark who specializes in representing high end financial companies, arranged the deal for Marble Arch.
While large financial services firms have appeared content to inhabit what space they have, boutique investment companies have continued to sign leases and at aggressive rental rates reminiscent of the last real estate boom.
In July, the large Brazilian bank Banco Pine signed a 3,000-square-foot lease for a pre-built office unit on the 645 Madison Avenue’s ninth floor for rent in the high $70s per square foot. That lease stretches for five years.
Neither Mr. Leon nor Mr. Madison could be reached for comment.
