Blackstone Group Takes Another 80K SF at 345 Park Avenue
By Nicholas Rizzi March 11, 2021 6:25 pm
reprints
Private equity giant Blackstone Group bucked the trend of firms fleeing to Florida or shrinking their office footprint, and expanded its presence at 345 Park Avenue by 80,000 square feet.
Blackstone signed a lease for the space on the entire 12th floor and portions of the third and 11th floors of Rudin Management Company’s 44-story building, according to the landlord. The deal brings the firm’s presence in the tower to about 720,000 square feet, and Blackstone renewed all of its space to 2028, Rudin said.
“This expansion marks a significant commitment by one of the financial industry’s leading firms and signals an important part of New York’s recovery,” Bill Rudin, CEO of Rudin Management Company, said in a statement. “We are thrilled that Blackstone has chosen to expand and extend our more than 30-year partnership, and we look forward to accommodating their office space needs for many years to come.”
A spokesperson for Rudin declined to provide the asking rent, but CoStar Group data estimates it ranges from $84 to $103 per square foot.
The expansion comes as a bevy of hedge funds have started to open offices in Florida during the coronavirus pandemic, drawn by its low-tax environment. Blackstone itself joined the migration and announced plans to open a 215-person Miami office in October, Bloomberg reported.
However, despite headlines of New Yorkers heading to the Sunshine State in droves during the pandemic, a recent Bloomberg report found that only a small number of people actually left.
In 2020, 2,245 people filed to change their address from Manhattan to Miami, and 1,741 did so for Palm Beach County, Bloomberg reported. That’s only 9 percent of the out-of-state moves for Manhattan, and only slightly higher than the 6 percent it made up in 2019.
Blackstone first moved into 345 Park in 1987, and expanded its presence by nearly 150,000 square feet in 2018, as Commercial Observer previously reported.
“The Rudins have been an outstanding partner to Blackstone since we first moved to 345 Park in 1987,” Jon Gray, Blackstone’s president and chief operating officer, said in a statement. “We are thankful for their continued support of our rapid growth. We are also believers in New York City’s recovery and are pleased to be a part of it.”
Rudin’s Tom Keating handled Blackstone’s latest expansion in-house for the landlord. Blackstone had no brokers in the deal.
