SL Green's 100 Park Avenue was the first of Park Avenue's International Style high-rises. Located at the corner of East 40th Street, the modern glass and steel tower was completed in 1949 and replaced the Murray Hill Hotel, which dated from 1883 and whose residents put up a fierce battle against the new development. The building's current owner, SL Green, is wrapping up an 18-month, $72 million capital improvement program that includes a LEED for Existing Buildings ("LEED-EB") application aiming for a Silver rating from USGBC. The project includes upgraded building infrastructure, a new facade and windows, and a new lobby and elevators; BOMA named the tower its Best Renovated Building of the Year for 2007.
Last week, accounting and consulting firm BDO Seidman signed a 121,441-square-foot lease across the tower's 9th through 11th floors. The deal is the fifteenth largest leasing transaction of 2008; asking rents were $82 per square foot. Last year, SL Green completed the 31st largest leasing deal of 2007 at 100 Park, inking J. & W. Seligman & Co. to a 100,454-square-foot lease. BDO Seidman will move from its current headquarters at 330 Madison Avenue to 100 Park in January.
The deal is significant given that financial services tenants are increasingly looking to sublease major blocks of space in light of deteriorating market conditions. According to Real Estate Weekly, the French bank Natixis appears to be close to spurning a long-rumored deal for Class A space at SJP Properties' LEED Gold hopeful 11 Times Square (where asking rents are likely in the $100 per square foot range) for space that it will sublease from JPMorganChase at 277 Park Avenue for approximately $80 per square foot. These types of deals could prove increasingly dangerous to speculative projects such as 11 Times Square; back in April, SJP told REW it anticipated that the tower would be half-filled with tenants by this summer.
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