Bryant Park

The New York Observer reported earlier today that Al Gore's Generation Investment Management firm has finalized its lease for 5500 square feet on the 48th floor of the Durst Organization’s Bank of America Tower, which expects to receive the first-ever LEED Platinum rating for a commercial high-rise from USGBC. Asking rents at the Midtown tower, which was designed by Cook + Fox, had been hovering around $185/square foot; it’s unclear how much Gore’s firm agreed to pay for the space, but as of last July, this was the asking price for the only two remaining floors in the building. We've commented on the various factors (including the tower's sustainable design features) driving these incredible figures previously; recall that the most recent statistics from Cushman & Wakefield are an average of $93 per square foot for Class A space in Midtown.

I took a walk yesterday and checked in with 1 Bryant Park- Bank of America's new 55-story headquarters that’s aiming for LEED Platinum. The 1,200 foot tower will become the second tallest building in New York (after the ESB) once it’s completed in 2009, and I’ve posted some photos that I took on Flickr; there are also a few shots in the set of 4 Times Square (Durst’s first green building that stands to the new tower’s west) and the Verizon Building renovation.

• 1 Bryant Park (gbNYC- Flickr)
• Cross-Street Green Reno (gbNYC)

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).

Way back in October, I wrote about Starwood Capital Group's plans to create a green luxury hotel brand called "1" (named for the one percent of revenue that each property will donate to local environmental groups, chosen by a steering committee constituted, in part, by members of the Natural Resources Defense Council. NRDC also serves as an advisor to 1.) Yesterday, GlobeSt.com reported that 1 will land at 14-20 West 40th Street in Midtown as the 1 Hotel and Residences at Bryant Park, designed by Morris Adjmi. This is New York's second recent green hotel announcement, on the heels of the Greenhouse 26 project in Chelsea that was reported back in April.