Office landlords are positively enamored with mid-century modern renovations these days. The latest iteration of this trend comes from the Rockpoint Group, which has renovated an unused office on the 11th floor of 1700 Broadway into a 12,000-square-foot indoor and outdoor lounge for tenants.
Rockpoint purchased the 42-story, 626,000-square-foot office property between East 53rd and East 54th Streets for $465 million in January of 2018. The seller was Ruben Companies, which developed the tower in 1968. The Emery Roth & Sons-designed steel-and-glass tower is home to a handful of high-profile tenants: Architecture firm Gensler has 119,000 square feet on the second through sixth floors, and CBS occupies 63,229 square feet. A Newmark (NMRK) Knight Frank team led by David Falk is handling the leasing.
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In an effort to keep the property competitive with its pricey Midtown peers, Rockpoint teamed up with Fogarty Finger to design a tenant amenity space straight out of when the building was constructed in the ‘60s.
In keeping with that vibe, the lounge is dotted with semicircular armchairs and couches upholstered in rust orange, hunter green and navy blue; burgundy chaise lounges and Eames chairs in teal and pale blue. There are round mirrors, petite circular accent tables and plenty of potted ferns. Portions of the walls and ceiling are clad in dark wood, and, like any respectable mid-century haunt, the space hosts a large wooden bar accented by gold metal fixtures and black shelves behind the bar for wine and spirits. Two large walls of windows help open up the lounge, and glass walls separating the conference room and the main area allow sunlight to pour in between rooms.
“The amenity center at 1700 Broadway was designed to feel less structured than the surrounding offices,” said architect Robert Finger. “Each space — reception, bar, lifestyle lab, salon and billiards room — was infused with the ethos, materiality and spirit of leading 1960s designers and thinkers. And what emerged was a creative retreat that allows a pause from the structures of one’s daily experience.”
