Metro

City eyes top offers for offices

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With its workforce shrinking and a major space consolidation under way, the Bloomberg administration is looking to unload some of the city’s office buildings in trendy lower Manhattan.

“We have a pretty big footprint down here,” said Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, who is leading the downsizing effort.

“Much of it is unoccupied and needs to be consolidated. Every building owned by somebody else pays us taxes,” he said in promoting the sell-off.

Officials aren’t ready to identify specific buildings that might be unloaded, possibly within the next few months.

But there are nearly a dozen candidates in the vicinity of City Hall, which borders TriBeCa, where buildings have been converted to include condo and co-op units selling for over $1 million.

At 125 Worth St., the Health Department has moved most of its operations to Long Island City in Queens, although other city agencies remain. The building is valued at $41.6 million in the latest assessment roll.

Other structures nearby valued at $40 million or more include 2 Lafayette St. and 346 Broadway.

Woody Heller, an office-building expert at real-estate services firm Studley, predicted that the city wouldn’t have much trouble finding buyers.

“Older, prewar buildings lend themselves to residential conversion,” he said. “There will be an appetite for this.”

Last year, Goldsmith announced a plan to get rid of 1.2 million of the 12.5 million square feet of office space the city leases in privately owned buildings. By June 30, he said 280,000 will be gone, saving the city $11 million in rent each year.

In most cases, the leases expired. In a few instances, the city paid landlords to get out early.

The Human Resources Administration, which oversees the welfare system, terminated one of the largest unneeded leases, 51,000 square feet at 1775 Grand Concourse in The Bronx, simply by moving some units to other sites it leases in the borough.

The city will scrutinize agency heads who maintain lots of private offices that could be converted to the kind of “bullpen” complex employed by Mayor Bloomberg at City Hall, which requires considerably less space per employee.