By Hadassa Kalatizadeh
Here’s some good news for the 47-story office tower at 425 Park Ave in Midtown Manhattan.
Developer David W. Levinson’s commercial tower has just signed its first new lease in more than two years—adding on a new tenant for two full floors. As reported by the NY Post, global private-equity firm, Hellman & Friedman, inked a deal for a 15-year, 27,800 square-foot lease. Though the lease size is modest, this marks a breakthrough for the closely watched tower at 425 Park Ave, at which construction will soon be complete. Hellman & Friedman will move from Lever House across the avenue to the Foster + Partners-designed building later on this year.
The developer, L&L Holding Company, founded in 2000 by Levinson and Robert Lapidus, had big dreams for 425 Park Ave- which would be the first new block front office building on Park Avenue in 50 years. The $1 billion tower, which offers 690,000 square feet of office space, broke ground five years ago. The project hit a bump though, losing some major commercial tenants such as Wells Fargo Bank. There were also no new leases signed since January 2019, when Ken Griffin’s Citadel added 124,000 square feet to an earlier lease agreement. The hedge fund has leased a total of 331,800 square feet at the tower, become the anchor tenant, and is set to begin moving in as soon as it completes its high-tech build-out. Citadel signed most of the lease back in 2016, in a very competitive market, agreeing to pay $300-plus per square foot for the two top floors, which is among the highest office rents in history. For its space on 14 other floors, Citadel’s lease agreement is estimated at plus-or-minus $200 per square foot.
Rising to 897 feet, the striking building boasts a 45-foot-high lobby; two “diagrid” floors with ceilings up to 38 feet; super speed elevators which run at 1,200 feet per minute; and a double-height club floor for tenants only. It will be the city’s first WELL-certified building, lauded for several health, wellness and environment-friendly features. The building’s future is being carefully eyed as a bellwether for Park Avenue commercial activity.
“This is clearly not a good market. We had to adjust pricing because the market tells us to… the smartest people can take advantage of it,” Levinson had said in January. He had noted then that prices will go up again and that they were in “very serious negotiations” for new leases at the tower.
