Real Estate

It’s the lease Apple could do

App- and ad-happy Apple is beginning to suck up city real estate as it competes for warm bodies with inventive minds.

The tech retailer, which recently agreed to lease a big store in Grand Central Terminal, has now signed a 45,000-square-foot office lease at 100-104 Fifth Ave. in the Flatiron District.

The company’s iAd mobile advertising division moved into 10,000 square feet in January through a month-to-month deal for the pre-built sixth floor of the building. That has now been converted to a long-term lease.

Apple also signed leases for the 14th floor of 16,079 square feet and a large part of the 15th floor. The asking rent was $55 a square foot.

The floors of the two buildings line up, but there are two distinct lobbies with their own elevators, making egress — as well as subleasing — easy. Apple also has options on other floors.

Martin Horner of Jones Lang LaSalle represented Apple, while Grant Greenspan of the Kaufman Organization represented the owner in-house.

Since the Kaufman Organization, in partnership with Invesco, acquired the building in December 2010, 100-104 Fifth Ave. has attracted numerous new media and digital companies, including Yelp, Core Group, Net-a-Porter and Interactive Partners.

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Palm Beach, Fla.-based Lana Marks handbags and accessories will reopen at 780 Madison Ave. next week. It’s just up the avenue from a shop at 645 Madison that closed in May. The new, roughly 500 square foot space was previously occupied by Paul DuMont Estate Jewelry.

The 10-year deal was signed at about $750 per square foot, while fixtures were purchased separately.

Stuart Ellman of Judson Realty represented Marks, whose exotic alligator, ostrich and silk bags are toted by numerous celebrities. Gary Dana of the Dana Group at Prudential Douglas Elliman represented the ownership.

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An unpolished 142,814-square-foot gem in Midtown is heading to market for a repositioning as an office condo — or even a teardown — and could sell for close to $80 million.

The 1926-era office building at 2 W. 46th St. by Fifth Avenue is nearly full with tiny jewelry tenants. It already has undergone renovations for the modernization of elevators, windows, bathrooms, electric and risers. Its 17 floors plus penthouse and setback terraces have an abundance of the northern light preferred by jewelers “due to the clarity it provides for viewing gemstones.”

According to the offering memorandum slipped to us by a Midtown spy, it has an additional 20,000 square feet that could be sold or could become the centerpiece of a potential development site of as much as 434,402 square feet.

David Schechtman of Eastern Consolidated has the rare listing and did not return calls for comment.

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One of our kids’ favorite go-to mall shops, Spencer Gifts, is finally invading Manhattan with a freestanding NoHo location at 691 Broadway between E. 3rd and 4th Streets in the heart of NYU country.

The new shop will have 1,840 square feet on the ground and a 1,855-square-foot basement. The asking rent for the store with 30 feet of frontage on Broadway was $170 a square foot.

Michael Gleicher of Winick Realty Group represented the tenant along with the Mercer Square ownership.

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It was exactly a year ago this week that we revealed publisher Hearst Corp. was in talks to lease the very first retail space at its gorgeous Eighth Avenue and W. 57th Street headquarters tower to Sur La Table. Well, yakety yaks simply take a long time but finally an actual lease has been signed.

“We had the luxury of waiting for the right retail tenant at the right long-term lease price,” said Paul Luthringer, a spokesman for Hearst.

As a retail destination for those who love cooking and food, Seattle-based Sur La Table will open this flagship in the fall with cooking classes to start in December. A SoHo shop has been open since 2005, and an Upper East Side location since last year.

The 6,174-square-foot space will have 20 forkers — uh, food workers — to host media and cooking events.

Sources said the asking rent was $250 a square foot.

The retailer was repped by Steve Bartha. Hearst’s head of real estate and facilities, Lou Nowikas, handled the deal in-house along with the CB Richard Ellis team of David LaPierre, Richard Hodos and Stephen Sjurset.

lois@betweenthebricks.com