[NYguy]

Two recent deals show that this area continues to be the most expensive on all fronts...


http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...TATE/130539991

Hot dog! Rents near $200 a square foot in 2 deals
Financial firms ink the priciest office leases since the crash to secure space atop the GM Building and 9 W. 57th St.
Amount paid is nearly three times the midtown average.


By Daniel Geiger
May 30, 2013

It's not just the weather that's heating up in New York, so is the top end of the commercial real estate market.

In recent weeks two financial outfits have plunked down near-record sums—just south of $200 per square foot according to several sources with knowledge of the deals—to secure office space in the Plaza district. At 9 W. 57th St., the hedge fund Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb Inc. inked a deal for the top floor, and over at 767 Fifth Ave., more popularly known as the General Motors Building, Brazil's Banco Itau, expanded its penthouse footprint.

The leases are the most expensive to get signed since the real estate boom in 2008, when a handful of $200-plus per square foot deals were done. But those exorbitant prices were paid when the market was flying high and a laundry list of office towers in midtown were charging rents pushing well above $100 per square foot.

Real estate experts say the leases showcase the disconnect between the wider market and the rarefied world of top-tier offices. "What drove these kinds of prices the last time was a vibrant economy and a shortage of space," said Joe Harbert, the eastern region president of Colliers International. "There's a shortage now of unique space, which is why these deals are happening."

9 W. 57th St.'s 50th floor penthouse and the GM Building's top floor, which is also on 50, both boast soaring views of Central Park. Both also have long had a mystique that has drawn deep pocketed takers, such as tenants in lucrative financial services businesses like private equity and hedge funds. Brokers familiar with the property say that tenants are attracted to the buildings' proximity to gilded residential properties like 15 Central Park West and areas like the Upper East Side, where many titans of the financial world live.