Manhattan Office Building Attracts 105,000 SF Nonprofit Tenant

May 20, 2010
By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

Courtesy Flickr Creative Commons user midweekpost

Things are definitely looking up in the Manhattan office market. New leases of over 100,000 square feet continue to pop up, and The Bowery Residents’ Committee’s (BRC) newly executed lease of the entire 104,500-square-foot building at 127 W. 25th Street in Chelsea is among the latest.

Represented by real estate services firm Cassidy Turley, BRC signed a 33-year lease with 127 W. 25th Street’s landlord, Daniel Shavolian of Foremost Real Estate, who relied on Colliers International for representation on the deal. With the lease now in place, the path has been paved for the non-profit social services organization to unite its administrative headquarters, currently at 324 Lafayette Street, and many of its programs and operations under a single roof.

The move will mark an expansion for BRC, providing the organization with extra elbow room to accommodate the 90 new permanent employees it plans to hire. BRC’s lease agreement calls for the property owner to outlay renovation costs, a portion of which the organization will repay. The building is being upgraded to BRC’s specifications, courtesy of a project that will create over 100 temporary construction jobs. Construction activity is on track to reach completion by year’s end, at which point BRC will make the move to its new home.

A year ago, large lease deals in Manhattan, particularly if they involved expansions, did not transpire on a regular basis; however, change is clearly in the air. “The market is in good shape, it’s bouncing back,” Martin Meyer, vice chairman with Colliers, told CPE.

Tenant expansions, he said, are occurring more frequently: “There are still signs of financial troubles for some tenants, but in general, we see signs of a healthy market.”

Recent Manhattan office lease transactions include Horizon Media Inc.’s commitment to 115,000 square feet at the 1 million-square-foot One Hudson Square in Midtown for the consolidation and expansion of its offices. In March, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority signed on for nearly 113,000 square feet in the 350,000-square-foot Midtown building at 333 W. 34th Street to relocate and increase the size of its office space.

And just this week, news emerged that law firm Proskauer has entered into a lease agreement for 400,000 square feet at the 1.1 million-square-foot 11 Times Square office and retail high-rise, marking the largest office relocation transaction in Manhattan in two years. “The market is doing what’s expected based on current economic conditions,” Meyer said.