Monday LEEDoff: Two Remaining Floors at Platinum Bank of America Tower All Yours for $185/sf

Asking rents for the final two available floors at LEED Platinum hopeful One Bryant Park (Bank of America Tower) will start at an incredible $185 per square foot. (Image of developer Douglas Durst via NY Observer, note Verizon Building on left). The available floors are the 37th and 47th. According to Cushman & Wakefield, the average asking rent for Class A office space in Midtown is a (paltry by comparison) $70 per square foot. Durst hopes to open the tower within the next eleven months and has inked four firms thus far in 2007. The latest, hedge fund HBK Investments, signed a ten-year, 36,252 square foot lease on the 40th floor. (Anchor tenant Bank of America leased 1.6 million square feet at the building, leaving 500,000 for other takers). Earlier this year, Durst nabbed another hedge fund - Marathon Asset Management - and designer Elie Tahari for more than 100,000 square feet apiece. Taking rents for all leases at the building have topped $115 per square foot. It’s difficult to refrain from drawing conclusions about sustainability’s role in these unbelievable numbers coming from what will soon be New York City’s greenest commercial high-rise.

• To Be Durst Now That Summer's Here (NY Observer)