Photo Retailer Signs 93,000-SF Lease

NEW YORK CITY-Imaging products retailer B&H Photo Electronics Corp. takes four full floors comprising 93,000 sf at 440 Ninth Ave. here. The transaction is the last in a series that leaves the West Side site near Penn Station leased up. Over the past year, SL Green Realty Corp. negotiated five leases totaling more than 170,000 sf. B&H will use the site for its new and expanded corporate headquarters.

Steven Durels, SL Green’s senior vice president and director of leasing, tells GlobeSt.com that the firm made a “full-court press” to market the site over the past year. He says a number of leases were expiring–CNN relocated space to the Time Warner Center and Pitney Bowes downsized to additional space SL Green found for them–and the firm put a coordinated marketing effort to work. Cushman & Wakefield also canvassed the adjoining area to find potential tenants.

The B&H lease required the simultaneous relocation of an existing tenant occupying 43,000 sf. “Its relocation will permit the company to expand its retail space onto the second floor where it currently has offices.” Space in the site trades for the mid $20s per sf.