The swaggering downtown office market scored a one-two punch on Wednesday, as Bank of New York Mellon signed a lease at Brookfield Place and Larry Silverstein got the boost he needed to resume building 3 World Trade Center.
BNY — created by founding father Alexander Hamilton in 1784, 17 years before he launched The New York Post — decided to move its headquarters to 225 Liberty St., formerly known as 2 World Financial Center.
The roughly 350,000-square-foot lease ended suspense over whether the bank would remain downtown or move to Jersey City.
BNY announced last year it planned to sell and vacate its headquarters at 1 Wall St.
Some employees from Wall Street will move to Brookfield Plaza and others to 101 Barclay St. nearby, which the bank also owns.
Terms of the Brookfield lease were not immediately available.
Meanwhile, the PA board voted to let Silverstein tap $159 million in an insurance-proceeds reserve to help pay to build the rest of the $2.3 billion, 80-story 3 WTC, which has been stalled at eight stories.
The agency and the developer had been stalemated over financing the project. The PA balked at Silverstein’s plea for a loan guarantee, which he said he needed because of lenders’ reluctance to back a tower only 20 percent pre-leased.
A 550,000-square-foot lease Silverstein signed last winter with media firm Group M might eventually have been in jeopardy if the project remained stalled.
Both pieces of news delighted Sen. Chuck Schumer, a strong proponent of downtown commercial revitalization since 9/11.
He said of 3 WTC, “I’ve long said it makes eminent sense to finish what we started. The smart move to use existing insurance funds to sustain construction creates forward momentum on 3 WTC and signals to prospective tenants that we’ll build this world-class skyscraper here.”