First tenant signs lease at 7 WTC

Real Estate Weekly, Dec 21, 2005

World Trade Center developer, Larry A. Silverstein, and New York Academy of Sciences President, Ellis Rubinstein, announced that the internationally renowned academy has signed a 15-year, 40,000 s/f lease for the entire 40th floor at 7 World Trade Center.

The academy's new headquarters will be approximately one block from where it was originally founded in 1817.

"It seems almost providential that the New York Academy of Sciences is returning to its original neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, mere footsteps from where eight doctors created what has become one of the world's finest scientific institutions," said the Academy's President, Ellis Rubinstein.

Founded by doctors from Physicians and Surgeons, then independent of Columbia University and New York City's only M.D.-granting institution, the Academy is one of New York's oldest institutions. Former members have included Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Thomas Jefferson, James Watson, as well as most of the leading New York scientists of every era.

"We are pleased to welcome the New York Academy of Sciences to 7 World Trade Center, in what is the first of many leases to come in the future thanks in part to the incentive package recently enacted by government," said Mr. Silverstein.

"This organization and the many that will follow them to the World Trade Center site will help bring a renewed vigor and vitality to the neighborhood and hasten its transformation into a dynamic, mixed-use, 24/7 community. While Lower Manhattan will always be recognized as the world's leading financial center, it is quickly becoming a magnet for all different kinds of businesses and organizations."

Today, with more than 24,000 members in 140 countries, the Academy counts among its Board of Governors and President's Council the current and two preceding Nobel-Prize-winning Presidents of Rockefeller University, 20 other Nobelists and the chairmen, CEOs and presidents of world-renowned companies, academies and national funding agencies.

The Academy, which was represented in the transaction by the CB Richard Ellis team of Mary Ann Tighe, Tim Sheehan and Ken Meyerson, will occupy its new space beginning in the Spring of 2006.

"Today's decision by the Academy, one of the world's foremost institutions of scientific collaboration and exploration, marks a significant addition to the dynamic fabric of the new Downtown. It is fitting for this leading-edge, future focused organization to make its new home in the newest and most technologically advanced property on the Downtown skyline," said Mary Ann Tighe, Chief Executive Officer of the New York Tri-State Region of CB Richard Ellis.

The Academy's new home will include a conferencing center that will host major international conferences on the most pressing current scientific issues. Additionally, scientists from the Tri-State area's foremost research institutions will use the space to discuss recent work in one of the 20 or more discussion groups the Academy has made famous.

The law offices of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson served as the Academy's legal advisor on the transaction, while Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flora assisted Silverstein Properties. CBRE's Steve Siegel, chairman, Global Brokerage and exclusive leasing agent for the building, represented Silverstein Properties.