New York State Agencies Renew 500,000 SF in Lower Manhattan

The office building at 25 Beaver St. in New York City will continue to be the home of four state government agencies, now that a lease renewal agreement has been set in stone. New York’s Department of Insurance, Division of Housing and Community Renewal, Department of Lottery, and Office of Court Administration will all stay put in a total of 500,000 square feet of space. The address of 25 Beaver St. denotes a separate entrance to the 1 million-square-foot tower at 60 Broad St. Real estate services firm Staubach Co. represented the four agencies in the lease renewal with property owner Piedmont Office Realty Trust, formerly Wells Real Estate Investment Trust. The Lower Manhattan digs house approximately 1,800 employees of the four departments, and provide easy access to public transportation, as well as to other government agencies. Additional details of the lease agreement have not been disclosed; however, the average rental rate for Class B office space in the Lower Manhattan submarket in the third quarter of 2007 was $43.50 per square foot, as per a report by real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle. As is the case in other areas of the city, office space in Lower Manhattan is hard to come by and carries a big price tag. According to Jones Lang LaSalle, Lower Manhattan was the only submarket to experience a vacancy rate decrease across all three property classes in the third quarter, with the overall vacancy rate declining to 7.76 percent from 8.37 percent in the second quarter. Other major lease transactions in the Financial District over the last couple of months include AIG’s take of 133,400 square feet of sublet space at One New York Plaza and American Lawyer Media’s lease of 90,000 square feet at 120 Broadway. Piedmont Realty, headquartered in Norcross, Ga., owns a total of nine office properties in the Metropolitan New York area, with 80 Broad being its only asset in New York City. The REIT’s portfolio of premier office properties also includes locations in Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago. Since its 1997 Inception, Piedmont has acquired about $5.3 billion in office and industrial assets.