Four new tenants sign lease at i.park site

Long Island Business News, Aug 2, 2002 by Nick Anastasi

The New York Mercantile Exchange leads the list of four new tenants taking space at i.park, which is attracting significant interest despite current economic woes.

The NYMEX has signed to lease 40,000 square feet of space at the former Sperry and Lockheed Martin facility that once served as the temporary headquarters of the United Nations.

It will be joined by the law firm of Abrams, Fensterman, Fensterman & Flowers, market research firm MSW Research and biotech firm E-Z-EM Inc. Overall, the four leases amount to almost 100,000 square feet of space at the 1.4 million-square-foot complex.

David Leviton, of Cushman & Wakefield of Long Island, which has exclusive rights to market the i.park site, said the exchange will use the space as a backup to its operations in lower Manhattan.

The move a recommendation by the Securities and Exchange Commission in February that all financial centers in Manhattan find alternate locations to assure "business continuity" in the event an emergency such as Sept. 11.

The New York Stock Exchange has identified an alternate site in Westchester.

Main operations for the NYMEX are in the World Financial Center in Battery City Park at the southern tip of Manhattan. It is the world's largest futures exchange for physical commodities such as oil, gas, gold, silver and copper.

Nachamah Jacobovits, vice president of corporate communications for the mercantile exchange said the decision to establish the second location was "our own choice" and was not spurred by the recent SEC recommendation.

"We looked at a lot of space in the metropolitan area," said Jacobovits. "This seemed to make the most sense." She said the NYMEX expects to have the space completed by December.

Joining the NYMEX will be market research firm MSW, which is relocating from its base of operations in Great Neck. It will take 18,000 square feet at i.park, according to one of the firm's founding partners, Peter Klein. He said the move to i.park is scheduled for the second week of December and that all 75 employees will be making the move.

"We have nowhere to park nor is there any empty office space," Klein said of MSW's current address, which contains about 14,000 square feet.

E-Z-EM has leased 17,138 square feet that is currently being built out for the biotech firm. Leviton said that space will be ready for occupancy in November. E-Z-EM, which is located at 717 Main St. in Westbury, did not return calls seeking comment.

Finally, the law firm Abrams, Fensterman, Fensterman & Flowers is leasing 15,000 square feet of space at i.park. The firm now located in office space at 5 Dakota Drive in Lake Success is scheduled to take occupancy by October.

Other recent lease signings at the project include the New York Times, which signed on for 160,000 square feet, and Allstate, which is now in the process of moving into its 80,000-square-foot space. As a result of the signing, Allstate will consolidate five of its claims locations in western Nassau and Queens as part of a cost-cutting plan.

Leviton attributed interest in i.park to its location, its availability, its rates and, maybe most importantly, its size.

"Corporate America is looking to consolidate and increase efficiency," he said. i.park has an asking rent of $25 per square foot, plus utilities, a discount from similar space in the region. It is also the only facility of its type with large blocks of space readily available on a direct rental basis.

According to Denise Sullivan, director of research and marketing for Cushman & Wakefield, the western Nassau market has an overall average asking rent of $27.90 plus utilities.

For class A space that number breaks the $30 per-square-foot barrier, while class B space - i.park's classification - has an average asking rate of more than $27 per-square-foot.