Catering Company Ditches Manhattan for the South Bronx
By Nicholas Rizzi January 28, 2019 1:22 pm
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The catering company that provides food for the Brooklyn Museum and Jazz at Lincoln Center will move its headquarters from Hudson Square to the South Bronx, brokers on the deal announced.
Great Performances has signed a 20-year deal for 40,481 square feet in Savanna and Hornig Capital Partners’ The Bruckner Building at 2417 Third Avenue in Mott Haven, the Bronx, The New York Post first reported. Asking rent in the 172,000-square-foot building at the corner of Third Avenue and East 134th Street was in the high $20s per square foot, a source with knowledge of the deal told Commercial Observer.
The catering company’s headquarters are currently at 304 Hudson Square, but it is being forced to move out since Disney bought the building with plans to replace it with a new 1.2-million-square-foot headquarters.
Great Performances will move into the first and third floors of The Bruckner Building in the summer, according to Cushman & Wakefield (CWK), which brokered the deal for both sides. It will also allocate space in its new digs for its nonprofit dedicated to establish healthy eating habits for children, The Sylvia Center, to run a coffee shop on the first floor.
“We looked in Manhattan and Queens, but found the biggest welcome sign in the South Bronx at The Bruckner Building,” Liz Neumark, the founder and CEO of Great Performances, said in a statement. “The space there will enable us to build a new state-of-the-art facility that will incorporate significant production and energy efficiencies, one that will be designed to accommodate our continued growth.”
C&W’s David Lebenstein and Debra Wollens represented the tenant in the deal while colleagues Mitch Arkin and Omar Sozkesen handled it for the landlords along with JRT Realty’s Ellen Israel and Lauren Calandriello.
“Great Performances’ move to The Bruckner Building is not only a terrific opportunity for their business, but also for the South Bronx,” Lebenstein said in a statement. “The company will add great job opportunities in the neighborhood and offer supportive services through the nonprofit The Sylvia Center, which the company helped establish 12 years ago and continues to actively support.”
Savanna and Hornig bought The Bruckner Building for $30.5 million in 2015 and started a $12 million renovation that year which added a new roof, windows, elevators, electrical infrastructure and redid the interior office spaces, as CO previously reported.
Since the renovation, tech startup Lumiode, nonprofit Rewarding Environments for Adult Living and LeMed Speciality Pharmacy have taken space in the eight-story building.
