Steve Cuozzo

Steve Cuozzo

Real Estate

Macklowe closes on $62.5M purchase of 156 Williams St.

Billy Macklowe has closed on the $62.5 million purchase of 156 William St., the 250,000 square-foot office building he plans to convert to a dedicated medical facility.

“It’s nearly 100 percent occupied now,” Macklowe said, “but we’re going to get a 120,000 square-foot roll by June.” That’s when a 6-month extension expires which he granted to city agency tenants whose lease expired in December.

Since the purchase contract with former owner Capstone Realty Advisors was reported in November, it hasn’t been exactly clear what medical uses Macklowe had in mind for the 12-story, 1955-vintage address across the street from New York Presbyterian-Lower Manhattan Hospital.

On Monday, Macklowe said he views the hospital’s proximity as a “demand driver” for services that might include a ground-floor medical imaging center.

He said the six months before the city moves out gives him time to plan the building’s repositioning, which will include enhanced electrical and water capacity among other changes to support medical uses.

“We’re not trying to create a hospital,” Macklowe said, but rather to “tenant the building in a way not dissimilar to tenanting a mall, where you have an anchor tenant” that others in the location can feed off. An imaging center for procedures such as MRI’s and CAT- and full-body scans might be such an anchor.

The purchase — for a mere $250 per square foot — is the first in FiDi for Macklowe, who’s staked out his claim in Midtown and Midtown South since he formed his own company separate from father Harry Macklowe’s in 2010.

Among Billy’s holdings is the original Bowlmor Lanes building at 110 University Place. When we reported in 2012 that Macklowe had gotten control of the property, we wrote that the bowling alley’s remaining lease term was unknown.

Macklowe declined to comment this week.

But we’ve learned from brokers that leases for Bowlmor and a garage at the site expire imminently as does a garage lease — and that demolition for a new building will likely start this summer.

WeWork’s work is never done.

The fast-growing collaborative-space provider has expanded in Manhattan again, signing a lease for 63,300 square feet at Meringoff Properties’ 401 Park Ave. South.

Asking rents at the address are $62 per square foot. The move marks WeWork’s first plunge into thriving Midtown South.

Landlord principal Stephen Meringoff said, “Having toured a number of their locations and understanding what they have on the horizon, we recognized that 401 Park Ave. South would be an ideal location for their business, since the neighborhood has become the axis of the city’s burgeoning technology and creative industries.”

One thing on WeWorks’ horizon is a prospective move to Rudin Management’s 110 Wall St., where a deal’s now being negotiated for the firm to occupy the tower’s entire 300,000 square feet.

WeWork provides open spaces tailored to encourage collaboration along with advanced infrastructure and other services essential to start-ups.

Rather than rent office space long-term, WeWork, which calls itself a “physical social network,” offers “members” 30-day, month-by-month availability.

WeWork is also at 349 Fifth Ave., 175 Varick St. and 261 Maidson Ave.

CBRE’s Derrick Ades, Barry Finkelman and Patrick Nelson as well as WeWork’s Mark Lapidus acted for the tenant at 401 Park Ave. South and Meringoff’s Farrell Virga, Mark S. Stein and Jason Vacker repped the landlord in-house.

The booming Shawmut Design and Construction firm has more than doubled its space at Cohen Bros.’ 3 E. 54th St., where it added 27,000 square feet to the 13,000 it already called home.

CBRE’s Jared Freede and David Hollander repped the tenant.

Shawmut created such high-visibility projects as the “Cubes” retail spaces at 120 W. 42nd St., restaurant Nobu 57 and the Gucci store at Trump Tower.

Meanwhile, in two smaller deals brokered by CBRE tenant reps Stuart J. Siegel and Matthew Bergey, fashion designer Zaldy took the entire 6,000 square-foot second floor at 64 Wooster St. for office and showroom space.

Landlord Zar Property was repped in-house by David Zar. The ask was $78 per square foot.

Meanwhile, Aeropsace High Performance Center took the 3,000 square-foot retail space at 121 W. 27th St.