City’s Fire Pension Fund Leaving FDNY HQ in Brooklyn for Lower Manhattan
By Liam La Guerre May 1, 2018 5:21 pm
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The relationship between the Fire Department of the City of New York and its pension fund has been extinguished.
New York City Fire Pension Fund has signed a 20,679-square-foot deal at One Battery Park Plaza to relocate its offices from FDNY’s 320,000-square-foot headquarters at 9 MetroTech Center in Downtown Brooklyn, Commercial Observer has learned.
The pension fund, which became an independent organization from the Fire Department in September 2016, has been looking for its own offices for over a year. The pension group signed a 15-year deal, according to information provided to CO by Rudin family, which owns the building with Allianz Real Estate. The asking rent in the deal was $55 per square foot, according to a Rudin spokeswoman.
The organization will take a portion of the ninth floor of the 35-story, 870,000-square-foot building between the Battery and Whitehall Street in Lower Manhattan, which has an alternate address of 24 State Street.
“After an exhaustive one-year search we selected this property because it best fit our needs and specifically because it is managed by one of New York’s best regarded landlords, Rudin Management,” Stephen Cassidy, the executive director of the Fire Pension Fund, said in a prepared statement.
The Fire Pension Fund will relocate its 60 employees into the space and there will be workstations for 12 medical doctors that are independent consultants covering disability pensions. There will also be a boardroom and conference rooms. It expects to move in on Oct. 1.
Cushman & Wakefield (CWK)’s Charles Borrok, Troy Elias and Frank Freda represented the Fire Pension Fund in the transaction, while the landlords were represented by Tom Keating and Kevin Daly of Rudin Management Company, which operates the Rudin family’s real estate holdings. A C&W spokesman declined to comment on the transaction.
One Battery Park was constructed in 1970 by the Rudins and Rose Associates. The Rudins purchased the Rose family’s 50 percent stake in the building in 2012. Then in June 2016, Rudin sold a 49 percent stake in the building to Allianz, as The Real Deal reported at the time.
The property is currently 98 percent leased. In another recent deal at the building, online news company Genomeweb took 3,851 square feet for a part of the eighth floor. The organization is relocating from 40 Fulton Street, which is located between Pearl and Cliff Streets.
“Bringing two important organizations like the New York City Fire Pension Fund and the growing online media company, Genomeweb, to One Battery Park Plaza is a positive for our building and a win for Lower Manhattan,” Michael Rudin, a senior vice president of Rudin Management, said in prepared remarks. “These commitments are a reflection of the entire Downtown market today, which is being driven by strong leasing activity by [technology, advertising, media and information services or] TAMI tenants and the financial services sector.”
