Law Firm McDermott Will & Emery Taking 106K SF at One Vanderbilt
By Liam La Guerre April 25, 2018 1:04 pm
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Chicago-based law firm McDermott Will & Emery has signed a 105,539-square-foot lease at SL Green Realty Corp.’s planned skyscraper One Vanderbilt Avenue to relocate its New York offices, according to an SL Green release today.
The law practice, which has areas of focus such as tax, private equity, mergers and acquisitions, health care, high-stakes litigation, will occupy the entire 44th through 46th and 67th floors of the 1,401-foot tall building that is under construction across from Grand Central Terminal. The law firm inked a 20-year deal. The asking rent in the building was in the $160s per square foot.
One Vanderbilt, which will be located between East 42nd and East 43rd Streets, is expected to be completed in 2020.
“As a firm, we are inspired by innovation and are excited to put our brand on a building that reflects that,” John Yoshimura, the COO of McDermott Will & Emery, said in prepared remarks. “We have significantly grown our footprint and diversified our client offerings in New York, and we’re confident that the move to One Vanderbilt will help us build an even more formidable presence in the city.”
McDermott Will is currently located at 340 Madison Avenue between East 43rd and East 44th Streets and has roughly 300 employees, reflecting approximately a 25 percent expansion in the past year, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the lease.
The Kohn Pedersen Fox-designed, 1.7-million-square-foot One Vanderbilt is currently 31 percent leased.
Earlier this year, law firm Greenberg Traurig signed a deal for between 130,000 and 140,000 square feet, as Commercial Observer previously reported. And in late 2017, Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank (also known as DZ Bank) and subsidiary DVB Bank SE inked a combined 35,382 square feet of space in the tower. Also, TD Bank took 200,000 square feet in 2014 to anchor the property. Finally, chef Daniel Boulud will operate an 11,000-square-foot restaurant and café in the building.
“Global business leaders like McDermott Will & Emery are choosing One Vanderbilt because it offers the most advanced and amenitized new office construction right at the doorstep to Grand Central Terminal in the heart of East Midtown,” Andrew Mathias, the president of SL Green, said in a prepared statement. “The momentum we’re seeing at One Vanderbilt, two years ahead of opening, reaffirms East Midtown’s position as the premier business destination in New York.”
Newmark (NMRK) Knight Frank’s Moshe Sukenik and Noel Flagg represented McDermott Will & Emery, while a CBRE (CBRE) team of Robert Alexander, Sarah Pontius, Ryan Alexander and Emily Jones handled the deal for SL Green.
The CBRE brokers declined to comment via a spokeswoman, and the NKF brokers did not immediately return an inquiry seeking comment through a spokeswoman.
