Market research company Ipsos Insight inks Westbury lease

Long Island Business News, Apr 6, 2007 by Dawn Wotapka Hardesty

Local brokers have spent a year trying to fill the Westbury space Internet retailer 1-800-Flowers.com left behind when it planted itself in nearby Carle Place. Now they're reaping results.

In one of this year's bigger leases, market research company Ipsos Insight leased 34,000 square feet at 1600 Stewart Ave. The company plans to relocate from nearby Uniondale this summer, according to CB Richard Ellis, the leasing agent for the building owner, Lighthouse 1600 LLC.

"Anytime a large block of space over 30,000 [square feet] gets leased on Long Island, it's significant," said David Leviton, a Cushman & Wakefield broker who represented the tenant with colleagues Robert Kuppersmith and Robert Giglio. "As the market's tightening up, large blocks of space are getting harder to find."

Brokers have long bemoaned the lack of empty office chunks, but this transaction shows attention-grabbing deals aren't impossible. Leviton did not reveal the long-term lease's rental rate, but he indicated it was below the Island's $27-per-square-foot average.

The Ipsos deal is the former floral base's biggest lease. Deals are pending for an additional 24,000 square feet, and another 20,000 square feet on the address's top floor is up for grabs, said CBRE's Robert Seidenberg.

In late 2005, 1-800-Flowers announced it was swapping its 77,000 square feet for a bigger headquarters at nearby 1 Old Country Road.

The floral giant's seasonal army was hard on the building, a hindrance to some potential tenants, sources say. After 1-800- Flowers relocated, the site underwent renovations including a complete elevator upgrade, grander common areas with new carpet, lighting, doors and wall coverings and an improved cafe.