33 Whitehall St./ Image: Google Maps
NEW YORK CITY—Russo & Toner, LLP is remaining on the 16th floor at 33 Whitehall St., near the intersection of Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan. The civil litigation and insurance defense firm originally moved into the Broad Financial Center in October 2008. They renewed their 16,003-square-foot lease with a 10-year lease extension, remaining in their offices in the Financial District. The building owner is Stawski Partners. Additional terms of the lease were not disclosed.
However, according to CoStar current asking rents on spaces available for lease at 33 Whitehall St. range from $54 to $70 per square foot on a modified gross lease, with the tenant responsible for electric, operating expenses and real estate taxes.
Savills Studley's Marc Shapses, Roi Shleifer Seth Wasserman represented the law firm tenant. The landlord Stawski Partners was represented by CBRE's Edward Goldman and Jonathan Cope.
“The landlord is contributing to update and modernize the office to bring it to today's law office standards and efficiencies,” Shapses says. “The new transaction provides Russo & Toner, LLP, the flexibility for future growth without incurring any additional costs.”
As to the outlook for the neighborhood, the Alliance for Downtown produced an optimistic report. It stated for 2018, the 5 million square feet of commercial deals in Lower Manhattan amounted to the highest level of activity in the district since 2014. Transwestern also reported in its Q4 2018 Manhattan market report that Downtown experienced 1.5 million square feet of positive net absorption, the highest quarterly total since 2011.
However, Transwestern's report noted Downtown's availability rate was 13.3%, compared to 8.9% in Midtown South and 10.1% in Midtown.
Colliers International's Manhattan office market snapshot for January 2019 reported asking rent per square foot for Downtown was $62.12, compared to $78.53 in Midtown South and $83.12 in Midtown.
Analysts have pointed to the completion and opening of the 2.5 million square-foot 3 World Trade Center in June 2018 as a factor in the increase in Downtown vacancy rates. Yet Bloomberg reported on Monday that Silverstein Properties is considering proceeding with constructing 2 World Trade Center without first securing an anchor tenant. The firm's chairman Larry Silverstein pointed to the robust economy and successful leasing of the other WTC towers as reasons to possibly go forward with the construction. He commented the building would not be completed until three or four years.
Bloomberg also noted that 3 World Trade Center is more than 50% leased.
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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.
