By The Editors | Commercial Observer
It’s safe to say that Silverstein Properties has had its hands full. Silverstein signed roughly 1.2 million square feet worth of office leases across the city last year with most of its wheeling and dealing at the World Trade Center, where it fully leased both 4 and 7 World Trade Center.
That was headlined by the company nabbing one of the city’s largest leases of 2017 when Spotify took 378,000 square feet at the top of the 72-story 4 World Trade Center last February. With the move to 4 World Trade, Spotify planned to add 1,000 jobs and keep an additional 800 more in New York. The State of New York also guaranteed Spotify an $11 million rent reduction over the course of its 15-year lease for its pledge to hire more employees and keep its workforce in the city.
Just five months later, the music-streaming giant executed a lease option to expand by an additional 100,000 square feet to occupy an additional three floors in the 2.3-million-square-foot tower, which brought the building to full occupancy.
Also last February, law firm Kramer Levin renewed its lease at Silverstein’s 1177 Avenue of the Americas—albeit resigning for slightly less space (roughly 265,000 square feet) as it planned to chop underutilized square footage and revamp its office layout, according to Marty Burger. Silverstein also locked in Macmillan Publishers in July 2017 for 261,000 square feet at the firm’s 41-story 120 Broadway.
As for Silverstein’s roughly $1 billion luxury residential development at 30 Park Place, the building was listed by PropertyShark as one of the city’s best-selling residential properties in the first quarter of 2017, with 38 condos sold at a median sale price of $5.8 million. The condos at 30 Park Place are now 85 percent sold, according to information from Silverstein. Larry Silverstein and his wife Klara are moving in there this spring.
“I have to say that the last nine months of 2017 were very slow for us in the condo market,” Burger said. “In 2018, we’ve had more sales in the first quarter than in the last nine months of 2017.”
To start 2018, the firm scooped up just over $300 million from Deutsche Bank to refinance One West End, its luxury condominium property completed in 2014 as part of the sprawling seven-building Riverside Center residential development.
But an even bigger prize awaited: In April, Silverstein signed a deal with the Walt Disney Company to acquire the American Broadcasting Company’s New York City headquarters, a multibuilding Upper West Side office portfolio along West 66th Street, as Commercial Observer first reported.
With construction on its 80-story, 2.5-million-square-foot 3 World Trade Center set to wrap in June, the company’s grip on Downtown is only getting tighter. Three World Trade Center is also ahead of schedule, with a grand opening set for June.”—Mack Burke
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