A major new lease from a financial firm is rare in New York City these days, especially around embattled Wall Street. So yesterday\u2019s announcement that a financial firm will scoop up a large block of trophy tower space in Downtown Manhattan came as a pleasant surprise. In a sign of the times, however, the new arrival will not be a U.S.-based firm. Instead, the tenant will be a German investment bank–WestLB AG. The company will take the top three floors at 7 World Trade Center for a total of 129,000 square feet. Completed in 2006 by Silverstein Properties Inc., the 52-story building was the first office tower destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to be rebuilt. \u201cThis is a feather in [Downtown\u2019s] cap in an otherwise very depressing year,\u201d Robert Sammons, Colliers ABR Inc.\u2019s director of research, said this morning. To some extent, Downtown\u2019s gain is also Midtown Manhattan\u2019s loss; WestLB will be leaving its long-time office at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, a Midtown trophy tower. Still, the WestLB lease will make a small dent in some of the Downtown office market\u2019s less encouraging statistics. Not including the transaction announced yesterday, Downtown\u2019s Class A office sector logged some 2 million square feet of negative absorption through November. That trend is a stark contrast to 2007, when Downtown absorbed about 1.7 million square feet during the same period. Downtown\u2019s Class A office vacancy rate jumped from 7.2 percent in October to 7.6 percent in November, but the WestLB deal slightly improves vacancy to about 7.3 percent, Sammons estimates. WestLB\u2019s move Downtown is also noteworthy because most other Manhattan tenants whose leases are rolling are staying put and signing short-term renewals, Sammons explained. \u201cIt\u2019s a big change to move from a prime Midtown location to Downtown,\u201d he noted. \u201cIt must have been very compelling for them to relocate at this point.\u201d Financial details of WestLB\u2019s lease have not been disclosed, but Sammons surmised that the tenant signed on highly attractive terms. Average asking rents for Class A office space in Downtown Manhattan are about $60 per square foot, a significant discount from the approximately $90 per square foot average in Midtown. The owner was represented by Silverstein Properties\u2019 Roger Silverstein and an eight-member team from CB Richard Ellis Inc.: Mary Ann Tighe, Stephen Siegel, Howard Fiddle, Brad Gerla, Adam Foster, Jason Pollen, Simon Wasserberger and Christie Harle. Representing WestLB in the transaction were Newmark Knight Frank\u2019s Mark Weiss, Scott Klau and Robert Eisenberg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A major new lease from a financial firm is rare in New York City these days, especially around embattled Wall Street. So yesterday\u2019s announcement that a financial firm will scoop up a large block of trophy tower space in Downtown Manhattan came as a pleasant surprise. In a sign of the times, however, the new…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1314,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37301],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1003919993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n