Financial services firms expand - resurgence of the financial services industry in New York City resulted increased lease transactions - Brief Article

Real Estate Weekly, Feb 4, 2004

Indicative of the recent resurgence of the financial services industry in New York City, CB Richard Ellis has arranged lease transactions totaling more than 43,000 s/f for Advent Capital Management LLC, Watson Rice LLP and M.R. Beal & Company, three minority-owned financial consulting and accounting firms.

All three firms recently doubled their presence in Manhattan. Eric Yarbro, senior vice president of CB Richard Ellis' Midtown Manhattan office negotiated all three lease transactions on behalf of the tenants for space throughout Midtown and Downtown Manhattan.

"Minority-owned businesses, specifically within the financial services arena have grown and expanded their presence in New York City by leaps and bounds over the past few months," said Mr. Yarbro.

"These new leases are indicative of not only this growing trend, but also of a national economy headed toward recovery."

African-American owned and operated Advent Capital Management LLC expanded and extended its presence at 1065 Avenue of the Americas. The investment advisory services firm, which previously occupied 7,334 s/f of office space for its corporate headquarters, will now increase its occupancy to 14,600 square feet of space by taking an additional floor in the property.

In the second transaction, M.R. Beal & Company, an investment banking firm and Black Enterprises" 2001 Company of the Year, signed a long term lease for 15,000 s/f of space at 110 Wall Street. The company previously occupied 7,000 s/f of space at 67 Wall Street, but required additional space to house its growing practice.

Finally, Watson Rice, one of the nation's largest and oldest culturally and ethnically diverse certified public accounting and consulting firms, committed to 13,500 s/f of space at 5 Penn Plaza.

Watson Rice will relocate its offices currently in 8,166 sift at One Park Avenue to the new location.