Steve Cuozzo

Steve Cuozzo

Real Estate

Continued downsizing at Times Co. tower

A lengthy story in Monday’s New York Times about how the Times Co. has shed assets to better focus on its “central product” — the newspaper — left something out: continued downsizing at the 620 Eighth Ave. headquarters tower.

The Times Co. is about to unload the last of seven floors it still owns in the 52-story, Renzo Piano-designed skyscraper at West 40th-41st Street, where it once owned more space than its development partner Forest City Ratner.

In 2009, the Times sold 21 of its 28 floors to W.P. Carey & Co. and leased them back with an option to repurchase them in 2019 for $250 million — likely below their expected market value six years from now. The Times Co. later leased six of the floors it still owned to law firm Goodwin Procter.

Now, the media giant has also put the 30,917 square-foot 21st floor up for lease via a CBRE Group team of Zachary Freeman, Ramneek Rikhy, Mary Ann Tighe, Gregory Tosko and Sacha Zarba. Tosko confirmed the offering, saying the move was “part of an overall restacking effort” by the Times Co.

The nearly column-free floor has fine views and advanced environmental features. We’re also told a tenant will have access to the Times cafeteria, useful in a neighborhood overrun with fast food.

The asking rent was unknown. A 45th-floor sublease of one of the Ratner-owned floors last year was asking $70 a square foot.

Although the Times space is on a lower floor, a direct lease might command more. A conservative estimate of $75 a foot would rake in $2.31 million a year.

Asked to comment, Times Co. rep Abbe Serphos referred us to the company’s second-quarter earnings call, when CFO Jim Follo said the Times still owned one floor “that we still occupy but have the option of renting out.”

Bloomingdale’s is adding aisle space — not at its Lexington Avenue flagship store but at its corporate offices four blocks south. The retail giant has signed a new lease for the whole sixth floor, with more than 47,000 square feet, at SL Green’s 919 Third Ave.

The deal brings Bloomie’s total at the address to 204,442 square feet, and provides it with a contiguous block spanning the fifth through the ninth floors as well as part of 11.

The asking rent was $65 a square foot, according to SL Green executive VP/leasing dir­ector Steven Durels. CBRE’s Scott Gottlieb and Michael Laginestra represented Bloomingdale’s.

The 919 Third Ave. expansion is “driven by the growth of their online business,” Durels said.

The West 39th Street block between Eighth and Ninth avenues, once a Garment Center backwater, already has five hotels, so why not another? A development site at No. 335 is on the market via Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s Capital Markets team’s Kenneth Zakin and Carol Ann Flint.

The midblock site can support a 60-room inn by combining its existing zoning entitlement with extra development rights acquired from the city through a Hudson Yards-area district improvement bonus.

The resulting 18 FAR would allow a new owner to put up a 44,437 square-foot building, Zakin said. He noted that similar sites nearby have traded for an average $330 per buildable square foot. Bids are due Oct. 23.-

Our scoop last week that Brooks Brothers plans a “Makers and Merchants” steakhouse at Aion Partners’ 11 E. 44th St. drew tons of amused responses on Twitter. We especially liked Wall Street Journal sportswriter Jason Gay’s tweet, “Peter Luger made me a blazer.”

We’ve since learned that before the buttoned-down haberdasher leased the space for its women’s line a few years ago, the 15,000 square-foot site was much in demand by established restaurants.

Among them, we’re told, was Haru Sushi, which coveted the three-level venue’s high ceilings and sidewalk windows.