SEEKING to exploit the growing taste for office buildings in untraditional locations, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is putting a big Astor Place development site on the block.
Cooper Union is offering a 99-year ground lease on 51 Astor Place, currently home to its Engineering Building between Third and Fourth avenues.
Studley’s Woody Heller, Will Silverman and David Endelman will field offers.
A buyer can raze the old building for a new, mostly commercial project. The site has been pre-approved by the city for a structure of 270,000 “zoned” square feet, of which 220,000 are slated for offices, 40,000 for community use and 10,000 for stores. The 270,000-foot total will likely be marketed as around 350,000 “rentable” square feet.
Heller said the current classroom building on the 51 Astor Place site is not as efficient as Cooper Union’s Foundation building just to the south. To replace the Engineering Building, the school is breaking ground on a new building at 41 Cooper Square nearby.
That project is to be finished in February 2009, when a buyer of the 51 Astor Place ground lease would take possession of the site.
Heller declined to estimate what the ground lease might fetch. But he said that if the land were sold outright, “Its worth would be no less than $350 per buildable square foot.”
He noted that a new building on the site would enjoy both proximity to the Lexington Avenue subway station across the street as well as “remarkable exposure,” thanks to its position on an island between the two wide avenues.
The artsy Astor Place neighborhood might once have seemed an unusual address for a new tower devoted mostly to offices. But Heller says Manhattan developers and tenants have increasingly been drawn to outside-the-box locations.
The success stories include Harry Macklowe‘s 610 Broadway at the corner of Houston Street, which leased up quickly, and Barry Diller‘s Frank Gehry-designed IAC InterActive headquarters on 11th Avenue at 18th Street.
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The World Economic Forum USA is leaving 233 Broadway for Midtown, inking a lease for a full floor of 8,600 sq. ft. at Charles S. Cohen‘s 3 E. 54th St.
Yup, the tenant is that World Economic Forum, the one that recently held its annual confab in Davos, Switzerland. The Geneva-based foundation is under the supervision of the Swiss government. The new Midtown address will serve as its North American headquarters.
Newmark’s Robert Silver repped the WEC and Cohen Bros.’ David Nevins repped the landlord.