Jewelry e-tailer Chloe + Isabel takes 30K sf at 180 Maiden Lane

CushWake team chipping away at filling up MHP, Clarion's building

Chloe + Isabel founder Chantel Waterbury and 180 Maiden Lane in the Financial District
Chloe + Isabel founder Chantel Waterbury and 180 Maiden Lane in the Financial District

UPDATED, 12:25 a.m., Jan. 14: Online jewelry e-tailer Chloe + Isabel is taking 30,000 square feet at 180 Maiden Lane, a Clarion Partners and MHP Real Estate Services-owned tower in Lower Manhattan.

The five-year-old startup that leverages members’ Instagrams to sell custom-made jewelry signed a lease right before the new year for the full 10th floor at the former AIG headquarters. The asking rent for the space was $55 per square foot.

The company, reported to be valued at more than $100 million, is relocating and expanding from about 5,600 square feet at 122 Hudson Square in Tribeca.

“We really looked all over Manhattan,” said Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s Corey Borg, who represented the tenant in the deal along with colleague Eric Zemachson.

A team at Cushman and Wakefield led by Tara Stacom is handling leasing at the building and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Clarion and MHP are nearly finished with a $28 million renovation of the 1.2 million-square-foot tower they bought from SL Green Realty in 2014 for $465 million.

After AIG relocated to 175 Water Street in April 2014, the building was left with about 800,000 square feet of vacant space, which the CushWake team has been working to fill. Last year, it signed the reinsurance brokerage the Holborn Company to 25,000 square feet. The building has also landed a handful of smaller tenants.

The current availability of nearly 747,000 square feet listed on Costar at 180 Maiden is one of seven blocks of 250,000 square feet or more available in the Downtown market, according to Colliers International’s 2015 office market report.

Those large chunks are asking an average of $62.83 per square foot, a 9-percent premium over the market average.

“That space is being taken downtown in increments,” Colliers broker Bob Goodman, who wasn’t involved in the deal, said at the brokerage’s media breakfast Wednesday. “We’re no longer seeing the humungous activity at a building like a 180 Maiden Lane. More of that large activity seems to Be Taking Place in and around the World Trade Center area.”