Real Estate

MTA: Related eyes Hudson deal tweak

47th St and Broadway (
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Related Cos. is trying to change the terms of its long-awaited deal with the MTA at Hudson Yards, even as the developer is closing in on a second major office lease for the first tower it plans to build.

Last night, MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota — contradicting Related officials, who insisted they hadn’t asked for any changes to a 99-year lease on the 26-acre site — told The Post:

“Yes, Related has approached the MTA to amend the existing deal. I am willing to entertain it so long as the MTA’s interests are fully protected. Any amendment would require approval by the MTA board.”

The “existing deal” was first announced two years ago but has yet to close. Luxury leather-maker Coach is to make its headquarters in the site’s first tower with the official address of 501 W. 30th St.

Lhota wouldn’t say what “amendments” Related wanted. But Coach is said to be nervous about any possible delay in the 47-story, 1.7-million-square-foot project, which is supposed to be finished by 2015.

Real-estate circles have buzzed for weeks that Time Warner Center developer Related, founded by Stephen M. Ross, was looking for a way to “sever” construction of the Coach tower from certain other of Related’s obligations at the railyards site — possibly including having to start paying rent on all 26 acres within three years of the Coach ground-breaking.

Since Lhota wouldn’t discuss specifics and Related wouldn’t talk at all, it was impossible to judge the accuracy of the claims.

Terms call for Related to close first on a deal with the MTA for the eastern yard — between 10th and 11th avenues — followed by closing on the western portion one year later.

Hudson Yards, bounded by 10th and 12th avenues and West 30th and 33rd streets, is the pet project of Mayor Bloomberg. He boldly announced a nonbinding deal between Related and Coach at a photo-op with officials of both companies last Nov. 1.

Numerous reports predicted a groundbreaking this month. An Oct. 7 New York magazine story celebrating Hudson Yards stated, “Groundbreaking on the first tower will take place in the coming weeks.”

But while Related and financial partner Oxford Properties Group can do preliminary excavation at the site, they can’t actually start building until the MTA lease is signed.

Yesterday, Related officials, who didn’t wish to be named, said they hoped to wrap it up by year’s end, while denying they wanted to change financial or contractual terms.

The railyard lease is valued at around $1 billion, subject to market fluctuations. Related and Oxford would not start paying rent for the first three years but make “contributions” totalling about $30 million.

Related officials said the only reason the MTA lease was taking this long is because of its complexity and the fact that it must also simultaneously tie up loose ends of the Coach lease and its contract with Oxford.

Meanwhile, sources said German multinational software giant SAP is in advanced talks for a large block of space at the Coach tower. It would be a second major leasing milestone for the Kohn Pedersen Fox-designed skyscraper.

SAP last summer overtook Siemens as Germany’s most valuable publicly traded company, with a $75 billion market valuation. Sources said Related and SAP are moving toward a term sheet, an agreement on major economic terms that usually, but not always, results in a signed lease.

SAP would have less than Coach’s 750,000-square-foot share of the 1.7-million-square-foot tower. But it would be a significant lease of several hundred thousand square feet, sources said.