NEW YORK CITY-RFR Realty has announced two new office leases totaling over 167,000 square feet at 757 Third Ave., bringing the 500,000-square-foot tower to 95% occupancy. The new transactions mark the climax of RFR's campaign to reposition and lease up the Emery Roth & Sons-designed tower following the departure of KPMG, which vacated approximately 180,000 square feet of the building in 2012. Within the past 24 months, RFR has completed new leases and renewals for nearly 400,000 of building's 500,000 square feet.
Grant Thornton LLP, the US member firm of Grant Thornton International, an independent audit, tax and advisory firm, signed on for 130,357 square feet in a 15-year deal. The company will relocate from 666 Third Ave. and expand its Manhattan presence by 20,000 square feet.
Meanwhile, Berkley Insurance Company, the principal reinsurance subsidiary of W.R. Berkley, will consolidate Midtown and Downtown offices into 37,453 square feet at 757 Third Ave. Other recent transactions at the building include a 12,199-square-foot lease to MPA–The Association of Magazine Media, the industry association for multi-platform magazine companies; a 6,961-square-foot lease to investment advisory firm Train, Babcock Advisors; and a transaction that saw Astoria Federal Savings and Loan Association lease 5,700 square feet on floor seven and 5,284 square feet on floor nineteen.
Mike Christian, Gregg Espach, and Chris Helgesen of DTZ Americas, Inc. represented Grant Thornton. Christopher Kraus, Brian Higgins and Reid Longley of Jones Lang LaSalle, along with Belinda Scanlon of Bernard Realty, represented Berkley Insurance. Representatives of RFR Realty were Gregg Popkin, COO; Steve Morrows, EVP and director of Leasing; Tom Lavin, senior asset manager; Gerard Schumm, EVP and a team from Jones Lang LaSalle led by Mitchell Konsker and Alexander Chudnoff.
"With our campaign at 757 Third Avenue, RFR has comprehensively outperformed the local submarket," says Popkin. "I think our success here simply confirms that we created something the market wanted—an interesting, compelling office address on Third avenue with professional management–and marketed it aggressively."
RFR's capital improvement campaign, commenced in 2012, included the addition of a new, contemporary lobby with rotating art program, elevator cab upgrades, and new common corridors and bathrooms. RFR refinished the building facade and installed new retail store fronts. Building infrastructure was upgraded, including enhanced, energy efficient HVAC systems, a new building energy management system, and state-of-the-art access control and visitor management system. RFR also rolled out a high-end prebuilt program to target boutique tenants.
Adds Konsker, "Throughout the marketing of 757 Third Avenue, tenants were pleasantly surprised to find such a distinguished property in this submarket. Yet again, RFR has proven to have the golden touch when it comes to repositioning a building and attracting a great mix of tenants."
"Our team applied many of RFR's signature touches to make 757 Third Avenue into something special, in a submarket where a lot of the product seems the same, while also offering a good value proposition. Tenants responded enthusiastically to the repositioned building, as evidenced by the volume of activity we've experienced," says Morrows. "We couldn't be more pleased to welcome Grant Thornton and Berkley Insurance to the property. There's no better culmination to a campaign than signing blockbuster deals like these."
Grant Thornton was looking for flexibility to grow its operations in Manhattan, while promoting a new and more contemporary vision for their offices, and 757 Third Avenue offered both. Grant Thornton will have significant signage and branding opportunities, and its own branded security desk within the building lobby. Berkley Insurance, was looking to consolidate two existing offices and secure a larger foothold in Manhattan. The focus was to secure a premier asset that afforded both a greater profile and efficiency for their operations. The company was already a major tenant within the greater RFR portfolio, given its 92,000-square-foot presence at Stamford Plaza Building III in Stamford, CT.
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
