Business

‘TIME’ FOR SOME ACTION

MACKLOWE Properties wasted no time finding a fancy retail tenant for 510 Madison Ave.

Luxury watch emporium Tourneau has signed a lease for a 3,300 square-foot store at the fast-rising tower’s East 53rd Street corner, where 25-foot ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows can provide a glittering showcase for 8,000 timepieces from watchmakers such as Rolex, Cartier and the Tourneau brand.

The new store will replace a smaller one that Tourneau has long had at the same block’s south corner.

Macklowe Properties Chairman and CEO Billy Macklowe said 510 Madison Ave. will top off Thursday and be ready for move-in by year’s end.

So far, the 350,000 square-foot project has signed only one office tenant, investment firm Jay Goldman & Co., which took an entire floor.

But Macklowe shrugged off concerns about the slowing economy, noting, “I think all markets cycle. We’re still in the Plaza District, the premier business district in Manhattan.”

He added that 510 Madison’s intimate floor plates, and lavish amenities including private dining, health club, pool and advanced environmental features make it ideal for the high-end tenants he’s seeking.

Meanwhile, pedestrians have been taken with the remarkable effect created by 510 Madison’s shimmering glass curtain wall.

Reflecting its surroundings like a mirror, it seems to duplicate the brick façades of buildings on the other side of the avenue, softening what might have been a harsh intrusion of 21st Century materials amid prewar environs.

Asked whether that was by design, Macklowe chuckled, “It’s hard to say what the intent was, but, yes, it [the glass curtain wall] reads as our neighbors.”

He said the asking rent on the Tourneau space was $600 per square foot. Macklowe was repped in-house by Jason Grebin and Andrew Lazarus. Robert K. Futterman repped the tenant.

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Larry Silverstein is going for the grand-slam he’s patiently awaited ever since his 7 World Trade Center opened two years ago.

The developer and HSBC are inching toward a deal for the banking giant to lease nearly 300,000 square feet on the tower’s top seven floors.

But this is fast-track inching.

Although no lease is out, and a term sheet has not even been signed, our downtown mole said “a term sheet is out,” meaning the sides are close to agreeing on basic numbers.

They include rent starting at $75 a square foot on the lower-most floors and rising to $85 a square foot on the top two floors (51 and 52). That would be downtown’s highest rent, but clearly within HSBC’s ability to afford.

Hard negotiating still lies ahead, but we’re told the parties are “feeling good” about it.

If a deal is struck, it will be sweet vindication for Silverstein, who could have leased the floors for slightly less but has held out for what he considers their true value.

And if it happens, HSBC will likely sell its building at 452 Fifth Ave., which the bank quietly has had on and off the market and from which employees would move south to 7 WTC.

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The stodgy environs of Murray Hill long seemed an odd home for Spin, the cutting-edge music magazine.

That will change later this year when the hip monthly moves from 215 Lexington Ave. at 33rd Street to the loft building at 408 Broad way, just below Canal Street.

Spin has signed a lease for 14,300 square feet, the entire fourth floor, in the five-story address bought earlier this year by Vanick Properties.

CB Richard Ellis’ Derrick Ades, who repped the landlord with his firm’s Matthew Bergey and Brian Feil, said Spin is the first new tenant since Vanick upgraded the lobby, bathrooms and air-conditioning.

“They were attracted to the building’s old-school, loft atmosphere, which includes high ceilings and narrow, cast-iron columns,” Ades said. Soon to come will be a “crazy skylight” on the top floor.

He said Vanick is in talks with an “edgy” advertising firm for another floor. The building also has 10,000 square feet of retail space on the block.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Philip Amarante repped the tenant.

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Note: In reporting on new retail leases at 15 Central Park West, I misidentified one of the partners in the project as William Zeckendorf Jr. Of course, I should have said William Lie Zeckendorf, who is his son.

steve.cuozzo@nypost.com