NEW YORK | The Spiral (509 W. 34th) | 1,041 FT | 66 FLOORS

[artspook]

this is too squat & biockzie to be named "the spiral" . .
instead it should be titled . .
dead trees on stairs wrapping ugly square footage . .

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Submariner

My wife made mention to me today on the train that BlackRock seems intent on moving into Hudson Yards. She was at a party with her manager a few days ago and the manager was talking about their relocation plans. Initially, they were to stay in Midtown (at the two buildings they currently occupy) then decided to look elsewhere - primarily Hudson Yards and 2WTC. One of the yet-to-be constructed buildings will be the likely spot for their move.

Hearsay and speculation, but that's the word on the office floor.

Good work. Keep badgering her on the train until she caves in, or decides she's had enough of you.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by NYguy

Good work. Keep badgering her on the train until she caves in, or decides she's had enough of you.

"Your honor...I will give up my claims on all of our assets if she just tells me when Blackrock is moving to Hudson Yards."

[NYguy]

^ Maybe you should take her on a tour of the site, tell her she will soon be able to climb the Vessel (the artpiece).

[NYguy]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa...-idUKKBN13H1GJ

Famed Plaza District fades as Manhattan office landscape shifts





By Herbert Lash
November 22, 2016

Lower leasing costs, more efficient office space and the hope of projecting an image more appealing to millennials are leading hedge funds and large corporations to leave Manhattan's most-coveted business district for a rejuvenated Downtown and the trendy far West Side.

The construction of gigantic new office buildings that allow tenants to use 20 percent less space is pressuring prices and driving firms like consultants BCG and law firm WilmerHale out of the tony Plaza District in Midtown Manhattan.

In the latest potential blow to the area surrounding the elegant Plaza Hotel - the city's most coveted business address for decades - asset manager BlackRock Inc (BLK.N) is poised to lease 850,000 square feet at a planned 58-story tower at the new Hudson Yards development on the far West Side.

Also spurring the slow exodus is the notion that the area just southeast of Central Park, which includes the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, is showing its age and fails to satisfy the city's burgeoning millennial workforce.

Buildings along Park Avenue in the half-square-mile Plaza section of Midtown on average were built in 1960. The area roughly runs from 50th to 59th streets and is bounded by Lexington and Sixth Avenues.

"For large, dynamic companies, these older buildings don't work as well, they just don't," said Bill Montana, senior managing director at New York-based Savills Studley, a unit of global real estate firm Savills Plc (SVS.L).

The new buildings are significantly more efficient and large companies use the space to compete for top talent, Montana said.

Four towers with an average height of 69 stories that are under construction by Related Cos, Brookfield Properties and the Moinian Group at Hudson Yards already are pressuring prices. Five other behemoths have been proposed for the far West Side.

Average leasing rates for 62 "trophy" buildings in Midtown have slid a touch more than 1 percent in October from a post-recession peak last year of $99.43 a square foot, which capped a 33 percent increase since 2009, real estate specialist Jones Lang LaSalle said.

Asking rents for the Plaza District averaged $95.47 a square foot for Class A buildings in the third quarter, compared to $66.05 a square foot for space in the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, real estate firm Colliers International (CIGI.TO) said.

BlackRock would like to add a cafeteria and auditorium, amenities that are missing at its two offices across the street from each other on 52nd Street, said a source with knowledge of the real estate search.

The move, which would involve about 2,800 staff, but has not been finalized, is as good or better financially than to stay, the source said. Projected rents for anchor tenants in the Plaza District when BlackRock's leases are up in 2023 are much higher.

A BlackRock spokesman declined to comment.

There is no new, large-scale construction underway in the Plaza District, though landlords have ordered major renovations such as a $325 million makeover at the old Time-Life Building on Sixth Avenue that has been rebranded 1271 Avenue of the Americas.

LEASING RATES FOR 'TROPHY' BUILDINGS SLIP

To be sure, no one is writing the area off. The Plaza still has cachet for many.

"Midtown will always prosper," said Cynthia Wasserberger, a managing director at JLL in New York. "Those landlords have to react a little differently to how they're going to fill the hole left behind."

Earlier this year JLL said almost half the world's 428 hedge funds with at least $1 billion in assets had New York offices.

Of those 208 sites, 94 percent were in Midtown Manhattan, with almost two-thirds located in the Plaza District, JLL said. One marquee hedge fund, Citadel LLC, in February agreed to pay a record $300 a square foot for part of the penthouse at 425 Park Avenue, according to media reports.

Citadel's average rent will be $175 a square foot on average after its other floors are included. Citadel declined to comment.

Still, high-profile names have left or will soon, such as private equity firm KKR's planned move from the Solow Building on West 57th Street, often called the city's most prestigious building, to Hudson Yards. The move is seen as highly symbolic.

The Plaza District has been losing ground for a while. It has been the third-lowest recipient of corporate cross-market relocations in Manhattan since 2011, when leases of more than 50,000 square feet are examined, according to Colliers.

But the Plaza, the city's biggest sub-market, has seen the largest departure of companies that have moved from Midtown, Midtown South or the downtown business centers in the almost six-year period up to mid-September, a Colliers report said.

During that time Midtown lost 30 tenants, a dozen of those from the Plaza, including five that moved to new construction, Colliers said in its "Manhattan Without Borders" report.

A drop-off in leasing demand is particularly apparent in the Plaza District, where the increase in available space surged by almost 4 percentage points in the third quarter to 12.9 percent from a year-ago, according to a recent Savills Studley report.

"There is a very strong base of people who still want to be in the Plaza District, myself included," Montana said. "For a lot of younger people, that's not what they aspire to. So the demand is less for the Plaza District because of building stock and because of change in taste."

[a very long weekend]

^ super good news. an exodus of these large tenants toward the far west side that gets all these buildings up will put a lot of pressure on the city/state/feds to upgrade penn station. plus all it should speed the residential components (particularly covering the second half of the actual hudson yards), which will help as any new housing does in manhattan. and who knows, maybe one day they'll build the infill station on the 7 line too. or rebuild javits. anyway, midtown's loss is the city's gain.

[Speculator]

Originally Posted by a very long weekend

^ super good news. an exodus of these large tenants toward the far west side that gets all these buildings up will put a lot of pressure on the city/state/feds to upgrade penn station. plus all it should speed the residential components (particularly covering the second half of the actual hudson yards), which will help as any new housing does in manhattan. and who knows, maybe one day they'll build the infill station on the 7 line too. or rebuild javits. anyway, midtown's loss is the city's gain.

You mean more of an upgrade than what is happening now and over the next 4 years?

[mrnyc]

the spiral of banality

[NYguy]

https://commercialobserver.com/2016/...-right-moment/

The Spiral
Size: 2.8 million square feet
Developer: Tishman Speyer

Once upon a time, Tishman Speyer could have been the developer of what’s today the Hudson Yards complex. But because the market wasn’t right, executives decided not to build a city within a city on top of a rail yard.

Now, however, the owner of Rockefeller Center and the Chrysler Building has its chance to shine on the Far West Side. Tishman Speyer has ambitious plans with The Spiral, a 2.8-million-square-foot office tower along 10th Avenue between West 34th and West 35th Streets (its official address will be 66 Hudson Boulevard). Starchitect Bjarke Ingels designed the 1,005-foot tower. His concept includes greenery going on the spiraled terraces of the building that at the bottom links to the end of the High Line.

Tishman Speyer, which declined to comment via a spokesman, still has a ways to go on the project (one of two properties it plans to construct on the Far West Side). The developer has secured $1 billion in equity from unidentified international investors, Bloomberg reported in February. Part of that money has been used to pay for development rights, which Tishman Speyer has purchased from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

But before the trees of the High Line start hitting the skyline, a couple of things need to happen. Namely, Tishman Speyer needs a large-scale tenant to occupy a decent chunk of the building, which rivals 1 World Trade Center and the Empire State Building in terms of square footage.

Financing for the project has also yet to be announced for the project, which means they’re likely relying on a tenant to sign.

Private equity giant Blackrock is rumored to be the prime candidate to anchor the building. But in recent weeks, reports have indicated that the mega-money manager is leaning toward 50 Hudson Yards, a planned office tower under development by Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group at 10th Avenue and West 34th Street.

“There’s always a question whether market demand is sufficient to fill the space,” Anderson said of overall development on the Far West Side. “Right now supply is growing rapidly and the question is whether there’s sufficient demand to fill it. Only time will tell.”

[TechTalkGuy]

In other words; The Spiral and 2 WTC have something in common, they are unable to attract interest.

[NYguy]

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...GS03/161219996

Optimism reigns as financial sector looks for Manhattan office space


December 12, 2016

Large banks and financial companies including AllianceBernstein and HSBC are browsing the office market for hundreds of thousands of square feet, according to The Wall Street Journal.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset-management firm, just committed to 850,000 square feet at Hudson Yards in one of the year’s biggest deals.

AllianceBernstein leases 600,000 square feet at 1345 Sixth Ave. in a deal that expires in 2024. The company has perused several locations, according to the Journal, including Hudson Yards, 4 Times Square and 1271 Sixth Ave.

“We are certainly looking for a dynamic new collaborative workspace for the future of the firm,” an AllianceBernstein spokesman said.

The activity suggests a turnaround for a sector that once was the city’s most voracious taker of office space but has not been the same since the 2008 downturn. Financial firms had occupied 32% of Manhattan’s office space but have contracted in the past four years and now fill 25% of it.

The searches are a sign of optimism, but also reflect a continuing desire among big tenants to become more efficient with their space. New office buildings, like the Hudson Yards tower where BlackRock will relocate, allow tenants to put more employees into less square footage.

[chris08876]

Its good news for the towers West of 6th Ave but bad news for WTC. Larry can't compete. Lower the rates, see a reduction in 2 WTC size, and compete with this tower and the ones sprouting North of 30th and West from 6th Ave.

If Blackrock wasn't a wakeup call, IDK what is.

On the plus, I can see a tower like this getting a major tenant, but other super talls will suffer. As much as I would rather see 2 WTC steal potential tenants, I don't see it happening for competition reasons.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by chris08876

Its good news for the towers West of 6th Ave but bad news for WTC. Larry can't compete. Lower the rates, see a reduction in 2 WTC size, and compete with this tower and the ones sprouting North of 30th and West from 6th Ave.

Larry can compete, it will take longer, which is really just business as usual. There is a limited amount of office space being built even on the west side. That space is going at a fast rate. What they're building on the west side is basically a new Park Avenue district, with the oppurtunity for the large floorplates you can't get on the eastside now. I think the draw of the west side was underestimated, but the city is counting on Midtown east to renew itself, even with what's going on Downtown, in Brooklyn, and Queens. The planning was that they will all work together for the common goal, even if each district has its own ups and downs. In a city like New York, the WTC is a world away from the west side. Firms have the option to look at both (just as there is the option to leave the city altogether).

Meanwhile, Silverstein is still busy Downtown...


http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...d-trade-center

Spotify in talks to move to 4 World Trade Center
$8 billion music-streaming company would become largest private-sector tenant at downtown spire

December 12, 2016

Two sources familiar with the company's decision-making said it was currently focused on taking around 400,000 square feet at 4 World Trade, which opened two years ago and is owned by Silverstein Properties.

If the deal goes through, Spotify would take over most of the 2.3 million-square-foot building's remaining available space and become its largest nongovernment tenant.

[NYguy]

https://therealdeal.com/issues_artic...rs-heavy-lift/

Rob Speyer’s heavy lift
The Tishman Speyer CEO has supersized his family’s company, but can he shoulder all the weight?




April 01, 2017
By Katherine Clarke

.....Now, after years of very careful dealmaking, Speyer is once again upping the ante. Perhaps most notably, he’s steering his company away from owning and operating cash-flowing office buildings and toward more commercial and residential construction. He’s plowing capital into a range of ground-up projects and conversions citywide — including a mixed-use tower in Downtown Brooklyn, a five-tower project in Long Island City and a massive Hudson Yards skyscraper — at a time when some analysts forecast potential oversupply in those areas. The firm also has a slew of projects and holdings in other cities, including Los Angeles, Shanghai, London, Frankfurt and Rio de Janeiro.

“We’ve never been more active, either here in New York or globally,” Speyer said.

Yet with all of those deals and developments, his lift is heavier than ever. And industry sources say some of his most recent marquee projects — especially the $3.2 billion Hudson Yards tower — will test his true real estate prowess.

Speyer’s spire

Following the Stuy Town disaster, Rob Speyer became noticeably reserved and, at times, cagey.

“You learn from your mistakes and we certainly learned from that one,” said Speyer, who favors talk about the technical makeup of his deals rather than his personal life. “The biggest lesson was about our use of leverage. [Virtually] every investment we’ve had since 2010 has been 50 percent equity and 50 percent debt.”

In a cautious move made even before defaulting on Stuy Town, the company walked away from a deal to buy the development rights to the 26-acre West Side rail yards in 2008. Related Companies acquired those rights shortly after for $1 billion and began its $15 billion Hudson Yards project with Oxford Properties Group.

But, nearly a decade later, Tishman Speyer is gearing up to go head to head with Related in the quickly emerging area. In its most significant move since the financial crisis, the firm shelled out $438 million for a development site at 66 Hudson Boulevard in 2014.

That acquisition was one of Tishman Speyer’s riskiest bets in NYC since Stuy Town — a rare purchase of dirt for a company better known for managing high-profile, already-built towers. And the project came with the daunting task of wooing tenants in an ultracompetitive leasing environment and securing a construction loan at a time when banks were closing their coffers.

To date, Speyer has not secured a single tenant for the planned 2.3-million-square-foot, Bjarke Ingels-designed tower known as the Spiral. That means construction cannot begin.

That’s even as Related has been on a leasing roll lately, signing deals with the likes of asset manager BlackRock — which sources say was also talking to Tishman Speyer — and reportedly negotiating with Morgan Stanley. And nearby, Brookfield Properties is completing its more than 7 million-square-foot Manhattan West project, which has inked leases with the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and the National Hockey League.

Some say Speyer’s Hudson Yards move was cleverly calculated because it allowed his firm to benefit from the first wave of development in the area without taking on the risk of being the first in.

“They made a decision not [to buy in earlier], but the minute they decided it was working they bought two plots,” said CBRE Vice Chairman Michael Laginestra.

Speyer said he can afford to be patient because the land deal was financed entirely with equity, meaning there’s no ticking time bomb on a loan.
But several insiders said that Tishman Speyer’s building could be handicapped by the fact that unlike Hudson Yards and Manhattan West — which are sprawling, amenitized complexes — it will be a standalone tower.
Speyer disputed that characterization, arguing that his tower will feed off the rival buildings.

“Every time Brookfield and Related get a tenant, it’s great for us,” he said. “We’re their biggest cheerleader. It builds critical mass. We were able to buy our way in before most of those deals were finalized. The neighborhood went from being a question mark to a declarative sentence.”

Tighe said Related’s approach to Hudson Yards would not have worked for most other companies, including Tishman Speyer, whose investors may have wanted quicker returns.

“It’s generally perceived now that Related hit upon the magic formula: Make no money on the office space and make all your money on the residential and retail,” she said. “If you have a capital structure like Tishman Speyer and you’re predominantly an office company, I don’t know how you sell that to your investors.”

Deciding whether to buy the site was clearly a tough call for the firm. Speyer was reportedly prepared to sign the deal right up until the day of the contract signing, but according to New York magazine, he got cold feet at the last minute.

That same day, he and his father took a six-hour walk through the city to discuss the deal, eventually sitting down to tuna sandwiches at a 3 Guys Restaurant on Madison Avenue.

Speyer finally pulled the trigger. “It was the right decision at the time,” he told TRD.

[ILNY]

^ I am not surprised, the tower is so ugly nobody wants to move in. Same goes for 2 WTC also designed by BIG, coincidence ? Time to change the architect and things will get better. Still hoping for Hudson Spire.

[TonyNYC]

Originally Posted by ILNY

^ I am not surprised, the tower is so ugly nobody wants to move in. Same goes for 2 WTC also designed by BIG, coincidence ? Time to change the architect and things will get better. Still hoping for Hudson Spire.

I agree completely with the ugly part.. BIG is the most overrated Architect out there.. 2 WTC and The Spiral are my least favorite supertall proposals in NYC.

Not sure which one is worse, but I'll go with 2 WTC because of the significance of the area!

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by ILNY

^ I am not surprised, the tower is so ugly nobody wants to move in. Same goes for 2 WTC also designed by BIG, coincidence ? Time to change the architect and things will get better. Still hoping for Hudson Spire.

That's actually incorrect. Related has succes with it's office towers for a different reason:

“It’s generally perceived now that Related hit upon the magic formula: Make no money on the office space and make all your money on the residential and retail,” she said. “If you have a capital structure like Tishman Speyer and you’re predominantly an office company, I don’t know how you sell that to your investors.”

If we assume that nobody wanted to move into the tower 2 design because it was "ugly" (a ridiculous notion), then we have to assume the same thing for Foster's tower 2 design. And while 15 Penn may not have been the most beautiful tower, nobody ever said it couldn't get built because of the design. Related is leading the way with the emerging business district on the west side, paving the way for towers like 3 Hudson and the Spiral, and of course 50 Hudson which is just as big and bulky as this one. There are always a whole lot of lease signings in Manhattan, and if you had to say the signings were on the so called "beauty" of the buildings, well you just show me that.

[citybooster]

If being ugly was the chief reason to not locate into a building who would want to go into One Penn Plaza? Sheesh... we lost historic, wondrous Penn Station to get this. But it works for the companies that located offices there, and being despite its ugliness functions well for what it was intended. And for all its pretensions, the Spiral isn't ugly so much as a disappointing downgrade from the soaring, skyline defining visions of Hudson Spire. Soaring vision or nice but pretentious downsizing, the Spiral should attract a nice number of companies soon enough. Doesn't mean I don't pine for the pre-BIG soaring vision, but it is what it is.

[NYguy]

I agree. Also, the majority of the space that Related has been able to fill has been owner occupied spaces, as opposed to lease signings like Silverstein, Brookfield, and Tishman are looking for.

[ILNY]

Originally Posted by NYguy

If we assume that nobody wanted to move into the tower 2 design because it was "ugly" (a ridiculous notion)...
.

Of course that is a ridiculous notion, that was just me expressing my dislike of BIG designs. If companies don't care about "ugliness" of a tower than the opposite may actually be true. Signature, prestige buildings may attract just like Fifth Ave attracts retail. If supertall or megatoll Hudson Spire was built here I am sure Hudson Yards area would grow even more in significance and would attract more tenants.