Nonprofit City Year and Marketing Firm Splash Relocate to 180 Maiden Lane
By Abigail Nehring October 4, 2023 1:26 pm
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Nonprofit City Year and event marketing platform Splash are relocating to 180 Maiden Lane while current tenants Cover Whale and Royal Funding Group are expanding their space in the building, Commercial Observer has learned.
In the largest deal, City Year signed a lease for 10,807 square feet on the 25th floor of the 41-story Financial District office tower, according to the landlord. Asking rent was $65 per square foot, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.
The national education nonprofit is relocating from 55 Broad Street, its home base since 2017. City Year leased 13,074 square feet in the Broad Street building, which is now undergoing a residential conversion, forcing an exodus of its office tenants.
“They didn’t have a choice about staying, but they had a choice about where to go,” said Stacey Kruger Birndorf of Transwestern, who represented City Year along with Rory Murphy and Larry Serota. “180 Maiden Lane bubbled up because of its amenities, its philanthropic mindset. And they had a great pre-built space.”
Tara Stacom, Robert Lowe, Justin Royce, Frank Cento and Connor Daugstrup of Cushman & Wakefield (CWK), along with Jesse Rubens of JLR Realty, brokered the deal for 180 Maiden Lane owners Clarion Partners (CPREX), LaSalle Investment Management and Banyan Street Capital.
City Year is a national service program founded in Boston in 1988. It now operates in 29 cities across the country.
In a smaller deal, event management startup Splash signed a lease for 5,215 square feet, also on the 25th floor of the building, to relocate from half a mile away on the 28th floor of 233 Broadway. Asking rent was $63 per square foot “based on the view,” the source said.
A spokesperson for the landlord declined to say the length of the leases.
Rubens said the building’s location and pre-built spaces are a big draw for downtown office tenants.
“We’ve been refining our pre-built technique since our tenure on the building starting six years ago. We think we’ve perfected it by now,” Rubens said. “We see tenants taking space pretty much as is.”
A conference center, cafeteria, fitness facility and Wi-Fi-enabled public atrium make the building a “city within a city,” Rubens said. “We really built a community.”
Michael Pallas, Andrew Coe and Margaux Kelleher of JLL (JLL) represented Splash in the deal.
“Signing two new leases for brand-new pre-built units within months of hitting the market is a testament to our strategic upgrades to both tenant and amenity spaces,” said Clarion Partners’ Joshua Mandelberger.
In addition to the new deals, two existing tenants renewed and expanded their spaces in the property.
Commercial trucking insurance provider Cover Whale will expand into an additional 4,042 square feet on the eighth floor of the building, according to the landlords. Leo Paytas of Newmark (NMRK) arranged the deal for the tenant. It’s unclear how much total space Cover Whale currently has in the property.
Royal Funding Group is expanding its space by 2,422 square feet, according to the landlords. The small business lender expanded its space on the 10th floor by 2,008 square feet earlier this year, and has now grown its footprint to 8,977 square feet.
Travis Egenberg of Norman Bobrow & Company represented Royal Funding Group. Egenberg declined to comment.
The 1.2 million-square-foot office tower is on the East River waterfront, steps from Pier 17 and the South Street Seaport.
Abigail Nehring can be reached at anehring@commercialobserver.com.
