NEW YORK CITY-After shopping around the Penn Station submarket for new office space, non-profit organization Common Ground has decided to stay put at their longtime home of 505 Eighth Ave., says brokerage firm Cassidy Turley. The firm’s not-for-profit practice arranged an 18,000-square-foot, 10-year lease for the organization inside the Newmark Holdings-owned building in Midtown.

The organization--which builds transitional housing for low-income New Yorkers and helps address homelessness issues--will relocate from the 15^th floor of the building to the fifth and 12^th floors. Both were gutted, renovated and modernized to suit the tenant’s needs. “We made a cost-effective economic solution with a minimal disruption to the staff and its daily operations,” says David Lebenstein, senior managing director and principal of Cassidy Turley’s not-for-profit practice, who secured the new space along with managing director Mark Furst. “We did look at some other options where they could all be on one floor, but at the end of the day, they really wanted to stay in that commuting pattern and that geographic area.”

The deal was particularly unique due to rising rents and increasing demand for office space on Manhattan’s Far West Side. Lebenstein says the firm worked with the landlord to create a “tailored solution” to keep the organization close to its roots. “Normally landlords like to renew tenants with just some paint and carpeting or minimal work, but we persuaded them to keep this tenant as if they were a new tenant and give them a new home,” he says. The owner was represented by Eric Gural and Allen Gurevich with Newmark Knight Frank. “This is a terrific landlord that has a lot of not-for-profit tenants and knows how to treat nonprofits with dignity,” Lebenstein added.