Manhattan Office Tower Gets $507M Refi
Law firms occupy a major piece of this Times Square high-rise.
A joint venture of PGIM Real Estate, Norges Bank Investment Management and SJP Properties Co. has obtained a $507 million loan to refinance debt associated with 11 Times Square in Manhattan. The property is a 40-story, 1.1 million-square-foot, LEED Gold-certified office tower.
Proceeds, combined with $42.8 million of sponsor equity, will refinance $507 million of existing debt and fund $43 million of upfront reserves, as well as pay closing costs. JPMorgan Chase Bank, German American Capital Corp. and Wells Fargo Bank will co-originate the note and also act as mortgage sellers.
Previous financing included three 10-year loans of $169 million, each with a maturation in 2025 and each originated by a major bank. Around the time of those mortgages, Norges Bank Investment Management acquired a 45 percent ownership stake in the property for $1.4 billion.
Norges Bank recently acquired a 95 percent stake in another Manhattan office high-rise. The investment firm teamed up with Beacon Capital Partners for the purchase.
A Times Square tower
Rising on Eighth Avenue between 41st and 42nd streets, the 2011-completed building is currently 87.2 percent occupied, according to Fitch data. A number of its tenants are major law firms, including Proskauer Rose, which occupies about 416,000 square feet and has invested about $52 million in its space.
Microsoft Corp. is also a tenant, accounting for 18.4 percent of NRA. The tech giant’s lease expires in June 2029.
The building includes floorplates from 20,000 to 41,000 square feet, with first- and second-floor retail space amounting to 100,000 square feet, according to Yardi Matrix information. The property counts as transit-oriented, its Manhattan location putting it within a quarter mile of six transit stations.
Law firms still important in Manhattan’s office market
The Manhattan office market has made something of a comeback from the pandemic-era doldrums, and the legal sector is still an important part of the equation.
Leasing activity overall came in at 20.6 million square feet in the first half of this year, according to an Avison Young report, the highest such volume since 2018. Also, the Manhattan availability rate clocked in at 16.4 percent, the lowest since 2020.
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By share of the office leasing volume in Manhattan, law firms took 12 percent of such space thus far in 2025, a higher share than even before the pandemic, Avison Young noted. In 2018, law firms took 10.4 percent of office space, while during and immediately after the pandemic this share dropped into single digits.
The 2025 share for law firms is more than the tech, media or consulting industries each take, but less than banking, finance, insurance and real estate, which took roughly a third of all office space. Law firms pay an average net effective rent of $63 per square foot in the borough, less than the finance industry or tech, but more than media or consulting.
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