SL Green Lands Leasing Commitments from Two Big Names

625 Madison Ave., Manhattan

By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

Be it office or retail space, SL Green Realty Corp.’s Manhattan portfolio always brings in  the big names, and the properties at 10 E. 53rd St. and 625 Madison Ave. are the latest to land high-profile tenants:  Swarovski North America Ltd. and Diesel.

At 10 E. 53rd, Swarovski has committed to nearly 18,000 square feet of office space under an 11-plus-year lease at the 364,000-square-foot building, where the Austrian crystal designer will take the 26th and 27th floors as its very own. The 37-story tower is presently undergoing a $64 million reinvention and, as Steven Durels, executive vice president and director of leasing and real property for SL Green, noted in a prepared statement, “Market reaction to the building’ss redevelopment has been overwhelming.” That was the plan.

10 E 53rd St., Manhattan

“The Swarovski deal at 10 E.53rd, I think, is affirmation of the excellent job the construction and design team and leasing team have done in repositioning and redeveloping that asset in a way to capture these type of high-quality profile tenants,” Marc Holliday, CEO of SL Green, said during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call on Thursday.

At 625 Madison in the Plaza District, Diesel will open a new flagship store, having inked a 10-year lease with SL Green for the building’s premier ground-floor corner retail space at 59th St., the square footage of which is not presently being disclosed. However, what is being openly shared is the fact that the upscale lifestyle clothing and accessories retailer’s lease brings the occupancy level of the retail space at the 560,000-square-foot building up to 100 percent. Additionally, SL Green has divulged that Diesel’s rent marks an 83 percent increase over that of Baccarat, the previous tenant. Still, Diesel probably got as good a deal as it could get, as the retailer has a pre-existing relationship with the landlord; it also leases space at SL Green’s property at 135 Sprint St.

And, as Holliday added during the conference call, there are “many more deals in the pipeline to come from the retail leasing side.”