Will FiDi Come to Mean “Fine Dining”?

NEW YORK CITY—Fosun Hive Holdings completed its more than $160 million repositioning for 28 Liberty, the 2.2-million-square-foot office tower with a 2.5-acre landmarked plaza in Lower Manhattan. The Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designed building was erected in 1963.

In December 2013, Fosun International Limited, a multinational company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, acquired 28 Liberty, formerly called One Chase Manhattan Plaza, from Chase Manhattan Bank for $725 million, according to Real Capital Analytics.

Fosun’s repositioning included office leasing; renovations and modernization of the base-building infrastructure; public programming at the plaza; creation of the Union Square Hospitality’s Manhattan restaurant and Bay Room event space already at the top of the building; and now the making of the 200,000-square-foot retail destination, Marketplace 28.

Perhaps the term “FiDi” is on its way from being short for Financial District to meaning Fine Dining.

Opening in the first quarter of 2020, Legends Hospitality will operate a 35,000-square-foot culinary and live entertainment establishment at Marketplace 28. Designed by Jeffrey Beers, the restaurant and center will be located on the ground floor, incorporating the Noguchi Garden. It will feature a white table cloth restaurant serving cuisine of international chefs with art and music performances.

Prior to Legends’ opening, in the fourth quarter of 2019, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema will occupy 40,000 square feet in Marketplace 28. They’re creating a new 600-seat, 10-screen, neighborhood theater. Additional lease terms for the two tenants were not disclosed.

In the past several years, Fosun has leased 1.4 million square feet of office space at the tower. Some of the major tenants include the Office of the New York State Attorney General, the media company Wolters Kluwer, the London Stock Exchange and Booking.com. Fosun also managed construction of 600,000 square feet of turnkey fit-outs.

The Fosun development team behind the repositioning included Bo Wei, Thomas Costanzo, Jason Berkeley and James Connors.

With the Legends lease, Fosun was represented in-house by Costanzo and by Newmark Knight Frank’s Jeffrey Roseman, Ross Kaplan and Drew Weiss. The NKF team also represented the tenant, Legends. For the Alamo lease, Charter Realty and Development’s Dan Zelson represented the tenant. Fosun was represented by the same NKF team on the Legends deal.

For the office leasing, Fosun was represented by Costanzo, and by JLL’s Peter Riguardi, Mitchell Konsker, John Wheeler, Michael Berman, Daniel Turkewitz and Eliza Akers.