Hedge fund takes 60K sf at Minskoff’s 101 Sixth Avenue

Updated, 10:24 a.m., July 2: A hedge fund manager has taken 60,000 square feet at Edward Minskoff’s 101 Sixth Avenue, in the latest sign of once-gritty Hudson Square’s growing appeal to financial companies, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Two Sigma Investments, which has $13.7 billion assets under management, already occupies space at 100 Sixth Avenue, as well as in Three Buildings On West Broadway And Spring Street. The company, which touts its lack of “Wall Street swagger,” declined to comment to the Journal on the move.

Hedge funds typically have favored locations in the Financial District or in Midtown office towers, but Jones Lang LaSalle’s Paul Glickman, who represented Minskoff in the deal, told the Journal that a shift had begun to nontraditional neighborhoods because their top executives’ now prefer to live in these areas. Two Sigma was represented by Studley’s Greg Taubin and Matthew Barlow.

According to JLL data seen by the Journal, the vacancy rate for Class A buildings in Hudson Square in the second quarter of this year was 17 percent, down from nearly 20 percent a year ago.

The C-suite – high level corporate executives — “prefer to live in Midtown South and downtown now,” Glickman said, and “now wants to work where they live.” [WSJ] – Hiten Samtani