SL Green has now hired Tara Stacom at Cushman & Wakefield to handle leasing of the nearly 850,000 square feet of space at 180 Maiden Lane that could be available in the middle of 2014 when AIG’s lease is up.
Stacom is also leading the leasing assignment for the nearby One World Trade Center.
“We had a bunch of conversations with them when we bought the building and always assumed they would vacate,” said SL Green’s Steve Durels. “Now the moment is upon us to begin the marketing.”
Durels says the asking rents are in the $40s to $50s per square foot. There are East River views from the third floor upwards along with “Goldmanesque” infrastructure left by Goldman Sachs.
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Mayor Bloomberg’s focus on healthy eating may be boosting the profile of the city’s fresh food suppliers — but many are still coming to the city for a handout.
At next month’s Industrial Development Agency hearing, four different food suppliers will be seeking incentives. These benefits may include payments in lieu of real estate taxes, known as PILOTS, or the waiver of city and state sales taxes or mortgage recording taxes for the properties.
No exact requested benefits or job increases are yet available. These jobs, however, are usually the kind that would likely be filled locally and for the most part, would be for laborers who do not require computing or engineering skills.
R Best Produce, which delivers specialty produce that it imports from Caribbean, would like to renovate a 237,000-square-foot building on 465,000 square feet of land that is being vacated by Manhattan Beer at 400 Walnut Ave. in the Bronx.
The parcel at 400 Walnut is owned by the Sol Goldman family.
The beer company is leaving next year to consolidate on 19 acres where it is developing a $60 million facility and getting $24 million in tax breaks.
R Best has to move because its own spot nearby at 200-240 Food Center Dr. is being entirely taken over by co-tenant Dairyland through its parent, The Chefs’ Warehouse.
For another project, Bronx-based Foodfest Depot, which was among those displaced from the Bronx Terminal Market, wants to fix up a 98,000-square-foot building on 153,000 square feet of land at 550 E. 132nd St.
This plot was sold to the US Postal Service in 1988 for $4.5 million but was transferred to the city the following year for non-payment of taxes. That action was reversed by a court order in 2001. However, many Finance Dept. records still show the city as the owner, even though tax and water bills are mailed to the USPS.
A USPS spokeswoman confirmed that it is starting to market the site.
In Queens, the Japanese Food Depot, a wholesale supplier, is seeking benefits for two buildings totaling 29,000 square feet on a 60,000-square-foot parcel at 31-45 Downing St.
Even Staten Island is getting into the food fun, with a proposed 9,000-square-foot Food Kingdom supermarket on 10,000 square feet of land at 331 Port Richmond Ave. along with a 14,000-square-foot site at No. 332 across the street on the corner of Palmer Avenue.
Earlier this year, Fresh Direct agreed to stay in the city but move from Long Island City, Queens to a 500,000 square-foot facility on 16-acres in the Bronx in the future.
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While numerous developers, including the entire Roth family, Larry Silverstein, Harry Macklowe, Kent Swig and Steve Witkoff along with other real estate executives like Mary Ann Tighe and architect Costas Kondylis, attended, Steve Roth and Jerry Speyer both spoke about losing their longtime friend and land use lawyer, Sandy Lindenbaum, at his funeral on Monday at the packed Central Synagogue.
Roth noted, “He was indeed, the very best there was” and was “smartest-in-the-room smart” who could “predict the final outcome one, two or three years later.”
Calling Lindenbaum the “master of the 30-second phone call” and someone who “memorized the entire city zoning code,” Speyer said, “Sandy unquestionably shaped the New York skyline for many decades.”
His many deals and endearing smile will live on in our memories.