Law Firm Stays at Graybar Building With 15-Year Lease
Midtown skyscrapers maintain their steadfast appeal for the legal sector.
NEW YORK CITY— Cohen, Tauber, Spievack & Wagner P.C. signed a 15-year lease, remaining at 420 Lexington Ave., also known as the Graybar Building. The law firm will occupy 11,436 square feet at SL Green Realty Corp.’s 31-story, 1.5 million square-foot office tower.
A Cushman & Wakefield team consisting of Alan Wildes, Mark Weiss, Robert Baraf and Gary Ceder represented the tenant, Cohen, Tauber in the deal.
“At Graybar, tenants benefit from a prestigious business address and direct access to Grand Central Terminal,” says Wildes. “After a full search, the tenant decided to remain in the Graybar Building given the quality of the landlord, the newly designed space and the centrality of the building.”
A Cushman spokesperson tells Globest.com that the asking rents in the building are in the mid to high $60s per rentable square foot.
Other building tenants include SL Green, New York Life Insurance, Metro-North Commuter Railroad Co., Wolfe Research and the retail gym, Equinox. Located directly above Grand Central Terminal, it has similar location benefits of SL Green’s current skyscraper under construction at One Vanderbilt. The Graybar Building was constructed in 1927 in the Art Deco style, designed by architects Sloan & Robertson. At one time, it was one of the largest buildings the world.
CBRE’s recent report on law firms indicates that overall as an industry, attorneys still gravitate to Midtown. In Q3 2018, leasing velocity for this sector was up 24% from 2017. Law firms leased more than 1.69 million square feet in H1 2018. The brokerage notes this is the highest year-to-date figure since 2015. CBRE also highlights that more than 95% of all of these deals were in Midtown Manhattan.