Literary Agency Trident Media Group Signs 5K-SF Lease at 18 East 41st Street

A literary agency is moving within Midtown East to a new nook, Commercial Observer has learned.

Trident Media Group has signed a three-year, ​​5,200-square-foot lease on the 13th floor of 18 East 41st Street, owned by Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs’s RFR Holding, with plans to relocate from 355 Lexington Avenue, according to the landlord brokers from Resolution Real Estate.

Asking rent in the building is $45 per square foot, the brokers said.

“This building has become a hub for creative tenants, largely because of its open floorplates and central location,” Resolution’s Justin Gentile, who worked with John Thompson on the deal, said in a statement. “Its proximity to the new LIRR hub in Grand Central was also a selling point for this tenant.”

Elliott Zelinger and Scott Fink of Savitt Partners negotiated on behalf of the tenant.

“355 Lexington Avenue is being repositioned to residential, so it was important for Trident to stay in the Grand Central area and we were able to accomplish that,” Zelinger told CO.

With the growing trend of office-to-residential conversions, partly attributable to Mayor Eric Adams’s policies such as the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity and the Midtown South Mixed-Use Plan, Zelinger said tenants are flocking in greater numbers to properties that will remain workspaces.

Trident Media Group has made a name for itself with clients such as Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson, “Dune” creator Frank Herbert, and New Age guru Deepak Chopra.

Other tenants in the building also known as the Central Plaza Building include golf simulation club Five Iron Golf, which signed a lease for 4,000 square feet in the penthouse in late July.

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.