The National Football League is nearing a deal to relocate its
Manhattan headquarters in a cost-cutting move that would shrink its
office space by about 15 percent, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The NFL is currently located in 205,000 square feet at 280 Park Avenue,
which is owned by Broadway Partners, but the lease expires in 2012 and
it is now planning to sign on for 175,000 square feet at the Rudin
family-owned 345 Park Avenue, two blocks north. The organization will
hardly be the first big tenant to downsize and take advantage of
bargain prices amid the commercial real estate slump. Office rents on
Park Avenue between 47th and 65th streets are down to $65.97 per square
foot from their $102.62 per square foot peak, according to CoStar, and
while leasing activity has picked up, that’s mostly because of tenants
like the NFL consolidating while it’s still inexpensive to do so. The
NFL, which has been cutting costs across the board since late 2008, has
around 75 fewer staffers in its New York office since the downturn
began and has tapped Ted Moudis Associates to design the new office
space. [WSJ]

[more]

Chart clarification: While CBRE data puts Durst’s portfolio at 7.2 million square feet, a Durst spokesperson later said that figure is actually 9 million.

Asking rents plunged for some of Midtown’s top landlords last year as they competed for the few tenants searching for space in a weak leasing market, but their reductions helped keep their vacancy rates below the market average, experts said. The family-owned Durst Organization dropped its asking rents to $60.82 per square foot in November 2009 from $113.15 per square foot in August 2008, near the pricing peak of the leasing market, according to the most recent data available on Midtown’s top 10 landlords from commercial services firm CB Richard Ellis. The Real Deal compared data from August 2008 to November 2009 for the top 10 landlords in Midtown ranked by square feet owned. The 46 percent decline was the steepest among Midtown’s top 10 landlords, who control 93 million square feet, or about 41 percent of the market. Landlord and tenant leasing broker Cynthia Wasserberger, a managing director at commercial firm Jones Lang LaSalle said the landlords cut prices to attract tenants and keep their buildings filled. “I think all the landlords got aggressive. They were pretty swift in their decision to respond to the market,” Wasserberger said. [more]

William Rudin, president of Rudin Management, told CNBC that he sees some positive signs in the commercial real estate market. Rudin said companies are adding space to their leases in Rudin Management’s buildings. Law firm Loeb & Loeb, for example, added about 30 percent more space to the lease it just signed at Rudin’s 345 Park Avenue. Some companies, like Bank of America, have taken sublease space off the market. But the commercial debt market is still problematic, Rudin said. Debt problems will probably peak in 2017 or 2018, Rudin said, when loans made a few years ago come due. [more]

40 Worth Street and 345 Park Avenue (Source: PropertyShark.com)

A retailer and a law firm recently signed the year’s largest and second-largest new long-term leases. Gap signed a 20-year lease for 265,083 square feet at 40 Worth Street, the largest lease of the year so far. The company plans to put all of its New York offices in the space, moving out of 620 Sixth Avenue and 675 Sixth Avenue over the next two years. The asking rent at 40 Worth Street was $40 per square foot, but the final terms of the deal were not disclosed. Law firm Loeb & Loeb switched from subleasing space from Bristol Meyers at 345 Park Avenue to signing a 20-year direct lease at the same building. The firm added 36,000 square feet when it signed the direct lease, for a total of 155,000 square feet. Instinet also recently signed a massive lease, for 100,000 square feet of office space near Bryant Park.