Tenants line up at Times tower

Real Estate Weekly, June 28, 2006 by Daniel Geiger

Although only two deals have actually closed in the building so far, nearly all of The New York Times Building has already received leasing commitments, a source revealed.

The 50-story, 1.5 million s/f building is being developed by a joint venture between real estate firm, Forest City Ratner, and The New York Times Company, which will be relocating its offices from 43rd Street into roughly 800,000 s/f of space on floors 2 through 28 in the tower.

The building's remaining 700,000 s/ f are owned by Forest City Ratner, which has already secured two leases totaling 260,000 s/f. The firm signed a deal with law firm Seyfarth Shaw for 100,000 s/f at the end of May and then completed a 160,000 s/f deal with another law firm, Covington Burling, two weeks ago as reported by Crain's and The Post respectively.

"The building is a world class development and a fitting place for Covington Burling, which is one of the country's premiere law firms, to have its offices," said Studley chairman Mitchell Steir, who handled the deal with a Studley team comprised of Michael Colacino, David J. Goldstein, Matthew Barlow, and Daniel Horowitz.

Forest City Ratner was represented by CB Richard Ellis's New York CEO Mary Ann Tighe, vice chairman Howard Fiddle, executive vice president Peter Turchin, Tim Dempsey, Matt Preotle and Jason Pollen.

While Steir wouldn't confirm the building's purported leasing negotiations that are said to be ongoing between Forest City Rather and a handful of undisclosed tenants, he did reveal that Covington Burling had grabbed space in the building at an opportune time that allowed him to secure some attractive features for them in the lease, such as future expansion rights. Had they waited for the level of activity in the building to pick up to where it currently is, Steir seemed to hint that they would not have been able to garner such concessions without having to pay a steeper rent.

"To have this kind of flexibility in such a world class development really made it a great deal for both Forest City Ratner and Covington Burling," Steir noted. "Quality big block space is getting absorbed so quickly, its on the verge of becoming an endangered species."