Times Square

There are presumably people out there who don't enjoy a good hotel room, but I don't know any of them. Not to get too "Up In The Air" on you here, but there's something about those fluffy pillows and big goofy comforters and imposingly glossy dark wood desks they don't even really expect you to use. Something kind of cool and different, yes, but also something that causes even the most virtuous carbon-footprint-watchers among us to forget ourselves and all of a sudden become the sort of people who think, "well, I might as well leave the air conditioning on blast, so that it'll be nice and cool when I return to the room in seven hours." And that -- along with a host of really dumb industry practices like leaving lights on in vacant rooms (which gets called out in the Urban Green Council's massive recent report) -- is why hotels are some of the least-green big buildings in any city.

In a deal that is probably an accurate paradigm of the current state of the New York City commercial real estate market (that happens to be taking place in a green building), stock trading company Instinet appears to be close to taking 100,000 square feet on the lowest three floors of 1095 Sixth Avenue for approximately $70 per square foot. The firm, which is currently located at 3 Times Square, where its lease expires in 2011, is taking space that was leased back in 2007 by a separate real estate and asset management firm called Centerline Capital Holdings at $125 per square foot (rising to $140 over the lifetime of the deal). Centerline terminated its lease earlier this year after spending close to $15 million (around $150 per square foot) building out the space, so Instinet will be taking that effort over for free in addition to receiving an unspecified amount of free rent and allowances for any modifications or additional work that may be necessary to customize the space to its needs. According to Real Estate Weekly, that package might be in the neighborhood of a year of free rent and $50 to $60 per square foot of build out costs.

The Real Deal is reporting that SJP Properties' head Steve Pozycki told a luncheon crowd at the Cornell Club earlier today that the firm "would like a $100 per square foot rent but we would be real happy with a high $70 rent" at its 40-story, LEED Gold-hopeful 11 Times Square project, whose quest for tenants at premium rents has been a topic we've followed closely here at gbNYC. As recently as this past December, SJP was holding fast at an asking rent of $100 per square foot for the speculative office tower and, despite coming close to deals for anchor space on a number of occasions, it has still failed to ink a single tenant to a lease. Although SJP has consistently refused to back off its asking rents over the past year, even as the economy has deteriorated, the project is obviously a victim of the horrendous commercial office market; Newmark Knight Frank recently reported that asking rents in Midtown are down 31 percent over March of 2008.

Check out some progress photos after the jump of what will soon be New York City's first 100 percent green-powered electronic billboard. The Ricoh eco-billboard will be a 47 - by 126-foot solar - and wind-powered installation that will light up the south face of the Reuters Building (3 Times Square) along 42nd Street at the corner of 7th Avenue. We wrote about the sign last summer and the photos- which we snapped last Friday- show that 3 of the photovoltaic mounts which will ultimately hold 45 individual solar panels have already been installed. When complete, the billboard will draw power from both those solar panels and 4 wind turbines, as well as account for a reduction of 18 tons of carbon dioxide per year. According to Ricoh, if the photovoltaics do not receive sufficient sunlight or winds are not strong enough to drive the turbines, the sign will simply not illuminate. Note that the Reuters Building continues to pursue a LEED-EB rating from USGBC. It's unclear exactly when the sign will be fully operational.