November 2014 – Briefs/Leasing & Management

Hudson’s Bay to Open Saks Store, Lease 400 KSF of Office in Lower Manhattan

Hudson’s Bay Co., the parent of Saks Fifth Avenue, already has a group of leases at Brookfield Place in Downtown Manhattan totaling 485,000 square feet. Next, it will open Lower Manhattan’s first luxury department store and consolidate its U.S. headquarters. A three-level, 85,000-square-foot Saks Fifth Avenue store will anchor Brookfield Place’s retail. This will be Saks’ second full-line Manhattan location, joining its flagship store on Fifth Avenue. The office space will consist of 233,000 square feet at 225 Liberty St. and 166,000 square feet at 250 Vesey St. The leases are for an approximate 20-year term.

Fosun, JLL Team Up to Lease NYC’s One Chase Manhattan Plaza

One year after acquiring One Chase Manhattan Plaza from JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. for $725 million, Fosun Property Holdings is nearing completion of the 2.2 million-square-foot Manhattan skyscraper’s repositioning and, in preparation, has joined forces with commercial real estate services firm JLL to facilitate leasing. One million square feet of premier office space will be up for grabs beginning in January 2015. Sited at 16-48 Liberty St. in Manhattan’s Financial District, One Chase Manhattan was erected as Chase Manhattan Bank’s headquarters 53 years ago, with David Rockefeller himself spearheading the development of the Gordon Bunshaft-designed tower. For Fosun, the property marks the Shanghai-based company’s first office project in the U.S.

C&W Inks Deal with Microsoft for Manhattan Flagship Store

The Microsoft Corp. has agreed to sign a lease for a flagship store at 677 Fifth Ave. in Manhattan, occupying the entire ground through fourth floors, as well as a portion of the lower level of the building. Further details about the size or the company’s plans were not revealed, although Microsoft’s stores normally feature PCs running Windows, laptops, smartphones, Surface and Windows tablets, Xbox consoles and accessories bundled with personalized customer service. Currently, there are more than 100 Microsoft retail stores in the U.S. The Fifth Avenue store will be Microsoft’s first full-time retail store in Manhattan. The company has specialty stores, which are smaller than the full-line version, at The Shops at Columbus Circle and the Staten Island Mall.

Cousins Signs Three New Leases at One Ninety Peachtree Tower

Cousins Properties will take its One Ninety Peachtree Tower in Atlanta to 92 percent occupancy, thanks to three new leases totaling 77,302 square feet. The Atlanta-headquartered REIT picked up the property back in 2006. The asset is as full now as it has ever been under Cousins’ ownership. Dixon Hughes Goodman L.L.P., a Southern CPA firm, signed the largest contract at 51,066 square feet. CBRE Group Inc. represented that transaction. Association County Commissioners of Georgia took 17,956 square feet in a transaction handled by Cushman & Wakefield Inc. The third lease involved Hall Booth Smith P.C., a law firm that has been in the property since 2009, expanding by 8,100 square feet. Cushman & Wakefield handled that deal, as well.

LKQ Corp. Takes 109 KSF of Phoenix Logistics Space

Conor Commercial Real Estate and Globe Corp. have signed Fortune 500 company LKQ Corp. to a 10-year, 109,060-square-foot lease at the Canal Crossing Logistics Center development in Phoenix. LKQ Corp. provides aftermarket replacement systems and components for cars, trucks and performance vehicles. The transaction brings the development to 70 percent occupancy. Delivery of the 155,144-square-foot center is scheduled for the first quarter of 2015. LKQ’s new digs will feature 97,000 square feet of warehouse space and 12,000 square feet for office use. Wells Fargo & Co. provided the construction loan financing, while CBRE Phoenix and Avison Young represented LKQ in the lease execution. Lee & Associates Arizona represented Conor Commercial and Globe Corp.

Venable Pre-Leases 250 KSF in New D.C. Office

National law firm Venable L.L.C. will move its Washington, D.C., headquarters to a building under construction at 600 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. Newmark Grubb Knight Frank represented Venable in the site selection and lease negotiation. The firm will lease about 250,000 square feet, or roughly 66 percent of the office space in the building, which will contain about 375,000 square feet of office space and about 25,000 square feet of retail. Gould Property Co. and Oxford Properties are developing the asset. Venable’s Washington office currently has about 400 lawyers and staff. Located in the city’s Penn Quarter neighborhood, 600 Massachusetts Ave. is only a couple of blocks from Venable’s current D.C. office at 575 Seventh St. The 10-story, LEED Platinum building was designed by CORE Architecture, is near the Gallery Place/Chinatown and Mt. Vernon Metro stations, and will feature on-site parking, a fitness center and a first-class restaurant.

Morningstar to Move NYC Office to 4 WTC

Morningstar Inc. has signed a 10-year, 30,000-square-foot lease at 4 World Trade Center and will move to its new 48th-floor space in mid-2015. The provider of independent investment research will be relocating from 1065 Sixth Ave., where it has 7,500 square feet, and will almost triple its office space. Lease negotiations for Morningstar were handled by a CBRE Group Inc. team headed by Michael Liss. Jeremy Moss, director of World Trade Center leasing for Silverstein Properties, led the negotiations from the landlord’s side, together with the CBRE agency team including Steve Siegel, Mary Ann Tighe, Adam Foster, Steve Eynon, Evan Haskell, Ken Meyerson and David Caperna. With this lease, 4 WTC is more than 60 percent leased.

CBRE, Blanca Tapped to Lease Office, Retail at New 3 MSF Miami TOD

CBRE and Blanca Commercial Real Estate have been tapped to lease the retail and office portions of MiamiCentral, a 3 million-square-foot mixed-use, transit-oriented development that will feature 200,000 square feet of retail and 800,000 square feet of Class A office space. The project is being developed by All Aboard Florida and Florida East Coast Industries Inc., which are bringing an express passenger rail service to South and Central Florida. MiamiCentral will span nine acres just east of Miami-Dade County Hall and an adjacent two-acre site on the corner of NW Second Avenue and NW SixthStreet in Miami’s Historic Overtown neighborhood. The rail service—which will have stations in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Orlando—is scheduled to begin service in late 2016.