The scent of change was wafting through the Empire State Building yesterday as global fragrance giant Coty signed the largest office lease at the landmark in half a century.
Coty is taking 87,856 square feet on the entire 14th floor and most of the 15th, moving employees from 1 Park Ave. It’s the latest high-profile company to move to the legendary Fifth Avenue address that was once better known for its Observatory than for its office space.
The tower’s leasing agent, CB Richard Ellis’ Steven Eynon, called the Coty lease “the poster child for the
Empire State’s repositioning,” which includes over $500 million in structural and aesthetic upgrades.
Anthony Malkin, who directs the tower’s day-to-day management with his father Peter, said the Empire State
has seen “more full-floor leases signed over the past 12 months than at any time since it opened” in 1931.
Just two years ago, Eynon said, the Coty space was occupied by 30 different tenants – reflecting haphazard
leasing before the Malkins took over management from Helmsley-Spear in 2006.
The asking rent on the Coty floors was in the high $50s. Coty was represented by Colliers ABR’s Richard
Bernstein and Ralph Giordano.
Eynon said the Empire State’s office floors are about 80 percent leased. That number is likely to rise as older, below-market leases expire – a “natural progression” and “a very deliberate process,” Eynon termed it.
The 2.2 million squarefoot skyscraper was once mainly home to shoe wholesalers occupying tiny spaces. But in the past 18 months, it’s attracted such high-profile tenants as Brennan Beer Gorman Architects,
contractor Skanska and Italian financial advisers Funaro & Co.