Although the Water Street and Front Street office tower corridors look much closer to normal than they did a few months ago, several buildings are still not yet 100 percent restored after Superstorm Sandy, and some stores and cafes remain closed.
But one address that’s mostly recovered is Jack Resnick & Sons’ 199 Water St., which just signed two full-floor leases totaling over 70,000 square feet, bringing the 1.1 million square-foot tower to more than 97 percent occupancy.
The WeissComm Group, a San Francisco-based public relations firm, is moving from Midtown South into 35,454 square feet on the 14th floor.
Meanwhile, the nonprofit physicians’ peer-review provider NYCHSRO/MedReview Inc., a subtenant, signed a direct lease for 36,985 square feet on the 27th floor.
Resnick president Jonathan Resnick said his company had to pump 8 million gallons of water out of 199 Water’s basement. Tenants began returning in late December.
Since then, “we’ve moved a lot of our critical infrastructure — utilities, emergency generators, safety equipment and telecom equipment — upstairs,” he said.
Work is also underway to install floodgates “at key openings on the perimeter” such as loading docks and garage entries.
The lobby has been upgraded and restoration of Joseph Stella paintings is under way. (Large images of downtown temporarily hang in their place.)
Resnick estimated his company’s total cost for “recovery, restoration and reinforcement” following the flood at $50 million.
Asking rents in the tower are in the $40s per square foot.
Meanwhile, retail space in the tower occupied by Abercrombie & Fitch and SuperDry, which is actually leased to South Street Seaport landlord Howard Hughes Co., is being rebuilt.
Cassidy Turley repped WeissComm Group; Cushman & Wakefield’s John Cefaly, Robert Constable and Andrew Peretz repped the landlord with Resnick’s Dennis Brady and Brett Greenberg.
CBRE’s Mark Ravesloot and William Iacovelli repped NYCHSRO. while Brady and Greenberg acted for Resnick.
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After we mentioned the other day that Walker Malloy’s Rafe Evans represented landlord Ricky Edmonds in leasing the former Lenox Lounge site at 186 Lenox Ave. to Richie Notar, the guys at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank who acted for Notar wanted to see their names here.
We’ll indulge them for a lease signed more than six months ago: They are Jay Gilbert and Carol Greene, who in fact worked on the deal for a long time.
But we’ll indulge Harlem-watchers as well: For those who missed it, we reported last Friday that Edmonds has won his court battle to have the jazz mecca’s fabled Art Deco interior trappings (and part of its façade) returned.
Their recovery from former Lenox Lounge operator Alvin Reed, who had a crew remove them in the dead of night on Jan. 1, means Notar can proceed with restoring the venue, to be renamed Notar Jazz Club.
Notar told Community Board 10 last year: “I don’t want to change a thing about how it looks.”
Reed still owns the Lenox Lounge name and plans to open a new one a few blocks north.
Meanwhile, how hot is Harlem?
The Commercial Observer reports that mega-restaurateur Danny Meyer hopes to open a bistro near Frederick Douglass Boulevard and 135th Street.
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The Weather Channel is blowing into the Silverstein Properties-managed 1177 Sixth Ave., where it will take 33,626 square feet.
The cable network is moving its New York headquarters from 205 E. 42nd St.
Terms were not released but a source said the starting rent is in the mid-$60s per square foot.
Silverstein Properties EVP Roger Silverstein noted that last year his company “worked with The Weather Channel on a successful program called ‘Iron Man’ about iron workers at 4 World Trade Center,” which is, of course, a Silverstein project.
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Stamford, Conn.-based Pierpont Securities must have big plans for Cortview Capital Securities, which it recently acquired.
Pierpont is moving the firm from 10,000 square feet at 650 Fifth Ave. to 36,000 square feet at 245 Park Ave. on a sublease from JP Morgan Chase.
Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s Brian Goldman and Matthew Lorberbaum repped Pierpont; CBRE’s Bob Alexander and Doug Lehman represented JP Morgan.