Park Avenue Tower/ photo credit: Real Estate Arts
NEW YORK CITY—EQ Office has doubled leasing at Park Avenue Tower following its capital improvements program. With the two latest signings, EQ Office has secured 265,000 square feet of leases, raising building occupancy from 40% in 2016 to 80% today. The skyscraper's tony address is in the heart of the Plaza District, at 65 E. 55th St., off Park Avenue standing between E. 55th and E. 56th streets.
The Rohatyn Group signed a 10-year, 10,317 square-foot lease. The specialized asset management firm, which focuses on emerging markets and real estate, is relocating its headquarters from 280 Park Ave. CM Investment Partners, an investment management firm specializing in secured direct lending primarily to US middle market companies, signed a 4,597 square-foot lease. It's moving from 601 Lexington Ave. Both firms will occupy a portion of the 15th floor, by the end of 2018. EQ Office is prebuilding the space. A source with knowledge of the transactions tells GlobeSt.com that the asking rents in the building range from $90 to $150.
The repositioning of Park Avenue Tower included a $40 million capital improvements program to modernize the building. The 620,000 square-foot building was erected in 1986. Subsequently, the property has attracted a range of blue-chip financial firms, prominent asset managers and other businesses, with now just six floors available for leasing.
“Through the repositioning of Park Avenue Tower, we have substantially raised the bar for the Manhattan office experience by providing tenants an environment that blends distinctive design, premium amenities and state-of-the-art workspaces,” says Scott Silverstein, leasing manager at EQ Office. He comments the building is leased to both larger and smaller-sized tenants.
Companies recently joining the building include global financial services firm BTIG, which signed a 65,365 square-foot lease for three full floors of the tower having a ground floor private entrance and elevator bank; technology company CLEAR, which signed a 24,640 square-foot lease for one full floor and a portion of another floor; and hedge fund start-up ExodusPoint Capital, which signed a 17,832 square-foot lease expansion for it headquarters to occupy two full floors.
Other notable tenants include the Raine Group, Monday Properties, ICM Partners, Oak Hill Capital Management, TowerBrook Capital Partners, Stephens Inc., Avista Holdings, Cyrus Capital Partners, East Rock Capital Management and National Bank of Canada.
For these two most recent transactions, in addition to Silverstein, EQ Office was represented in-house by Simon Wasserberger, and by Newmark Knight Frank's Brian Waterman, Jared Horowitz, Ben Shapiro, Brent Ozarowski and Lance Korman. The Rohatyn Group was represented by Larry Zuckerman and Dan Gronich of Newmark Knight Frank. CM Investment Partners was represented by Silvio Petriello and Taylor Scheinman of CBRE.
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Betsy Kim
Betsy Kim was the bureau chief, East Coast, and New York City reporter for Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com. As a lawyer and journalist, Betsy has worked as the director of editorial and content for LexisNexis Lawyers.com, a TV/multi-media journalist for NBC and CBS affiliated TV stations in the Midwest, and an associate producer at Court TV.
