Vornado Scraps Harlem Office Tower

NEW YORK CITY-Vornado Realty Trust has scuttled plans to build a 630,000-square-foot office tower in Harlem that would have housed Major League Baseball’s cable television network, CFO Joseph Macnow said late Tuesday afternoon.

Speaking at the Wachovia Global Real Estate Securities Conference here, Macnow said, “We’ve shut down a couple of development projects. We were going to build the first office building in Harlem in 50 years on 125th Street and Park Avenue. We’ve shut that project down. The economics are not warranted today to do that job.” Macnow also cited a mixed-use retail project in Boston that the Paramus, NJ-based REIT has canceled.

The Harlem Park project, announced in June 2007, was originally slated to contain 540,000 square feet of office and 90,000 square feet of retail on the first two floors. Jones Lang LaSalle was retained to handle office leasing. According to published reports, the cost of building the 21-story tower was estimated at $435 million.