NYPD Nears Lease for 106K SF at 375 Pearl Street

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The New York Police Department is about to nail down a deal for 106,000 square feet of office space at 375 Pearl Street, otherwise known as the Verizon Building, on the heels of a much smaller transaction elsewhere in the Lower Manhattan building.

The law enforcement agency is close to inking a 20-year lease for entire 15th, 16th and 17th floors of the telephone switching and data center building near the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge and 1 Police Plaza, according to the City Record. NYPD will pay $4,505,000 annually ($41 a square foot) for the first five years of the lease, $4,929,000 a year ($44 a square foot) for the sixth through 10th years, $5,353,000 a year ($48 a square foot) for the 11th through 15th years, and $5,777,000 a year ($52 a square foot) for the last five years of the deal, per the notice in the city publication. Asking rents in the building range from the $40s to $70s per square foot, Commercial Observer previously reported.

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The first 270 days of rent will be abated, and the city will have two five-year renewal options on the lease. It wasn’t clear what the NYPD would do with the space, but the City Record indicates that it will be used for “general, administrative and executive offices.”

The NYPD had been negotiating an 18,000-square-foot lease for the 22nd floor in the 32-story building in 2015, according to The New York Post, but the deal wasn’t finalized. However, the fuzz recently inked a lease for 18,767 square feet on part of the 20th floor, which they plan to occupy this fall, according to a spokesman for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS). (The rest of the floor was taken by the city Human Resources Administration.)

CBRE (CBRE)’s Gerry Miovski, Gregg Rothkin and Zak Snider represented the landlord, Sabey Data Center Properties, and a different, undisclosed team of brokers from CBRE handled the transaction for the tenant.

A spokeswoman for the NYPD didn’t immediately return a request for comment, and a CBRE spokeswoman declined to comment on the deal.

City Hall will sign off on the lease after the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services hosts a public hearing about it on September 5.  

Various city agencies have moved their offices into the 1970s-era brutalist structure over the past few years. The Human Resources Administration leased 194,000 square feet there last year, and the Department of Sanitation took 72,000 square feet a few months later. The Department of Finance inked a deal for 175,000 square feet at the property in 2016.

Architecture firm Rafael Viñoly Architects also leased the entire 31st floor last month.

Seattle-based Sabey and Young Woo & Associates acquired the 1.1-million-square-foot structure for $120 million in 2011. Then the pair embarked on a renovation to replace the top 15 floors of largely windowless facade with glass curtain wall, in an effort to upgrade a building that some New Yorkers say is one of the city’s ugliest.