[NYguy]

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EY signs for extra space in One Manhattan West

By Steve Cuozzo
January 2, 2018

EY is taking a bigger slice of One Manhattan West — the latest advance for Brookfield Property Partners’ seven-acre rail yard site that’s the city’s least-known, $5 billion mega-project.

The accounting giant formerly known as Ernst & Young quietly signed for an additional 71,000 square feet just before the holidays, bringing its total commitment in the rising 67-story tower to 675,000 square feet.

One Manhattan West is to open in late 2019 or early 2020. It’s the first of two office skyscrapers planned at Brookfield’s complex atop the rail yard bounded by Ninth and Tenth avenues and West 31st and 33rd streets.

Although Manhattan West isn’t exactly a secret, its public image is somewhat eclipsed by Related Cos.’ much larger, 26-acre Hudson Yards site to the west, where one tall office tower has already opened; and by the emotionally laden, 16-acre World Trade Center complex downtown.

It’s also hard to see what’s going on behind the fences, which are sandwiched between the former Farley Post Office building to the east and the façade of what will be Neiman Marcus at Related’s project to the west. But Manhattan West’s public profile has begun to rise with the completion of the 62-story apartment tower known as the Eugene and the start of work on the first office tower.

The Brookfield complex belongs to the city-designated Hudson Yards District, which includes both the sprawling Related and Brookfield sites as well as smaller ones owned by Tishman Speyer and Moinian Group.

Manhattan West will stand closest to Midtown’s heart. Its Ninth Avenue frontage is right across from the new, $1.6 billion train hall now under construction at Moynihan Station inside the former Farley Post Office building. The restaurant- and retail-filled hall, modeled on the original Penn Station, is to provide a more pleasant experience for riders of subways, the LIRR and New Jersey Transit.

“It’s happening literally across the street,” enthused Brookfield Property Partners chief executive Ric Clark. “It’s going to be beautiful and practically at our doorstep.”

Clark has more to cheer about. According to Brookfield’s data, Manhattan West’s total 2017 leasing volume of 1.77 million square feet accounted for 56.5 percent of the entire Hudson Yards District’s total 3.13 million square feet of office signings for the year. This despite Manhattan West’s 5.9 million square feet representing only 29.8 percent of the district’s total 19.8 million square feet.

The Manhattan West deals didn’t come cheaply to tenants. The complex accounted for four of 2017’s 10 priciest, long-term office leases, the Real Deal reported — including EY’s $654.14 million deal at One Manhattan West before the additional 71,000 square feet, and Amazon’s $428.86 million lease at 5 Manhattan West. Starting rents were in the $80s and low $90s per square foot, the Real Deal reported.

At One Manhattan West, which has begun to rise at the corner of Ninth Avenue and West 33rd Street, all but 300,000 of 2.1 million square feet are pre-leased. Tenants include EY, the National Hockey League, two major law firms (Skadden Arps and McKool Smith) and Accenture.

Meanwhile, Amazon’s recent deal for 360,000 square feet at Five Manhattan West — the glass-wrapped reinvention of what Clark calls “the ugliest building in Manhattan” — has brought the once-unsightly property to 99 percent occupancy, including 60,000-square-foot retail tenant Whole Foods.

Brookfield also recently filed Buildings Department plans for Two Manhattan West, a 62-story tower at Ninth Avenue and West 31st Street. Clark said, “There’s lots of tenant activity although we’re nowhere near announcing anything, but we hope to in 2018.” Clark said the tower should be open in 2022.

Another recent lease by creative-workspace firm Spaces filled slightly more than half of a third new office building at the complex, the 202,000-square-foot Lofts at 424-434 W. 34th St.

At another site component is the 62-story rental apartment tower known as the Eugene, “We’ve had phenomenal progress,” Clark said. “We underwrote a year-to-two-year lease-up. We opened the doors in April and it’s already 65 percent leased.”

A central, two-acre plaza is coming soon with 200,000 square feet of shops and restaurants, which JLL is helping to market. Work will also start this year on a 30-story, 150-room hotel topped with 45 luxury condos.

The Qatar Investment Authority is Brookfield’s 44 percent partner in the project.