NEW YORK CITY-It was the Monday before Christmas, and all through the industry, few were stirring…until Group M finally inked its lease at the World Trade Center. And while it was widely expected that the media company would sign on the dotted line, nothing's a sure thing in real estate until the moment of closing.

So as those who got the deal done breathed a sigh of relief (and maybe popped open the bubbly), the tenant's lead broker on the deal, Mary Ann Tighe, CEO of the New York tri-state region for CBRE, broke down what it all means for GlobeSt.com's Rayna Katz.

“It's an important validation for the changing nature of Downtown,” she says. “The two biggest leases done at the World Trade Center so far are global media companies [the other being with Conde Nast, also brokered by Tighe] who are changing the nature of how they occupy space and their reliance on technology. It also says something about the importance of new construction and what it offers. That played a role.”

The client also liked the openness of the space, initially designed to accommodate a different sector, Tighe notes. “Who typically anchored new construction?” she asks. “It was financial service firms. But Group M is taking space that had been designed as trading floors. So it's not a major bank coming in, it's a fast growing, technologically advanced company that wants open, collaborative space in an amenity rich, collaborative environment.”

The proximity to the new Fulton Transit Center and the Santiago Calatrava-designed Port Authority Trans-Hudson terminal were selling points too, she notes. The space also is $5 to $6 less per square foot, each year, than that of other buildings because of special tax breaks, and the space is more efficient as it's column free and without convectors.

But most of all, the fact that portions of the World Center Complex and Brookfield Place are now open for viewing, if not for occupancy, is the sea change that drove this lease and is pushing momentum forward.

“Since 4 World Trade Center opened last month, we've had a big pick up in activity.” Visits are coming largely from law firms and from Midtown tenants, she reveals. But whoever sets foot on the property, “their breath is taken away when they see the lobby, or the east/west connection from the Fulton Center all the way to Brookfield Place. For the first time, people aren't wondering if this is going to happen.”