Martha Stewart

Updated at 10 a.m., Nov. 21: Nearly 35,000 square feet of space currently occupied by the troubled media company Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia has hit the sublet market, industry sources said.

The hefty chunk of space at Chelsea’s Starrett-Lehigh building appeared on the real estate information site CoStar on Friday, and sources confirmed to The Real Deal today that it belongs to Martha Stewart Living. The publishing arm of homemaking guru Martha Stewart’s empire has more than 200,000 square feet at the RXR Realty-owned building at 601 West 26th Street, according to CoStar. [more]

Starrett-Lehigh building from above

The Starrett-Lehigh building, the massive office space on 26th Street and Eleventh Avenue, is finally back to fully operational, Crain’s reported.

Owner RXR Realty told Crain’s that their high-profile tenants desperately needed their offices back. A photo shoot with Ralph Lauren was set for last week at Canoe Studios’ space there, for instance. [more]

Biggest building purchases of 2011

Three out of the five biggest building buys in 2011, by price, were Manhattan office towers, according to figures from The Real Deal‘s 2012 Data Book, which is now available for purchase online. The biggest transaction of 2011 was the purchase of the Starrett-Lehigh Building, at 601 West 26th Street, by Scott Rechler’s RXR Realty for $920 million, as The Real Deal previously reported in our story about last year’s biggest commercial transactions. The 2.3 million-square-foot property, between 11th and 12th avenues, was previously owned by Shorenstein Properties, one of the nation’s largest landlords. A package comprised of 55 East 42nd Street — also called Park Avenue Plaza — and 49 East 52nd Street traded hands for $569 million last year, coming in at number two. The third-largest deal was for 401 East 34th Street, a 703-unit apartment building, which was purchased for $443 million by the real estate investment trust UDR. (See a chart of the16 top building purchases after the jump.)… [more]

Greg Taubin, senior managing director at Studley, and the Starrett-Lehigh building

RXR restructured leases for four tenants in a complicated series of maneuvers at its recently acquired Starrett-Lehigh building, GlobeSt.com reported.

The maneuvering was led by music management firm Harry Fox Agency, which terminated its 47,144-square-foot sublease from Tommy Hilfiger USA at Starrett-Lehigh and fled to 36,921 square feet at the Trump Building at 40 Wall Street. Harry Fox was represented by Studley. [more]

From left: RXR Realty’s 1330 Sixth Avenue, 601 West 26th Street and 340 Madison Avenue all have bike storage space

Amidst many obstacles, bike storage rooms are becoming more popular in New York City offices, according to the New York Times.

Office buildings including the Empire State Building, 520 Eighth Avenue, 345 Hudson Street, 1330 Sixth Avenue and 340 Madison Avenue have several hundred square feet of space for biking. RXR Realty, which owns the latter two properties, even has 1,800 square feet in its recently acquired Starrett-Lehigh building at 601 West 26th Street dedicated to bike storage for the 150 tenants that commute to work on two wheels each day. … [more]

Scott RechlerFrom the November issue: Scott Rechler is the CEO and chairman of RXR Realty, a multibillion-dollar private real estate company with roughly 20 million square feet of Class A office and industrial space. The firm — which is headquartered in Long Island and develops and owns property in the New York Tri-State area — recently completed the purchase of the 2.3 million-square-foot Starrett-Lehigh Building for $920 million. Rechler previously served as CEO and chairman of Reckson Associates Realty, which he sold to SL Green Realty in January 2007 for roughly $6 billion (including the assumption of $2 billion in debt) in one of the largest public real estate management buyouts in REIT history. In September, Gov. Andrew Cuomo appointed Rechler vice chairman of the board of commissioners of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey. … [more]

Scott Rechler, CEO of RXR Realty, and the Starrett-Lehigh Building

Scott Rechler’s RXR Realty this past Friday completed the purchase of the 2.3 million-square-foot office property in Chelsea, the Starrett-Lehigh Building at 601 West 26th Street, for $920 million, the company said in a news release this morning.

The 19-story building, built in 1932, was reported to be in contract in April after being brought to market by Eastdil Secured’s Doug Harmon and Adam Spies. It sold for about $400 per square foot. Tenants in the building include Martha Stuart-Omnimedia and clothing retailer Tommy Hilfiger. — Adam Pincus… [more]

The non-profit theater organization that runs the city’s TKTS discount ticket booths is taking its 75,000-piece costume collection to Queens after being priced out of the 13,000-square-foot Starrett-Lehigh Building space in Chelsea that has housed it for the past 35 years. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Theatre Development Fund will move in the fall to a lower-rent, 16,000-square-foot space at Kaufman Astoria Studios, where film and television shows like “Men in Black III” and “The Smurfs” have been shot. Perkins Eastman, the architecture firm that designed the new TKTS booth in Times Square, plans to gut and custom-design the space in order to accommodate TDF’s unusual garment collection, which has grown over the years through donations from Broadway, Off-Broadway, opera and television and film productions since the 1970s. … [more]

RXR Realty purchased the Starrett-Leigh building at 601 West 26th Street for $900 million from Shorenstein Properties, sources told Crain’s. The 79-year-old, 2.2 million-square-foot building has a variety of tenants, led by the Martha Stewart media empire and Lord & Taylor’s corporate offices. Crain’s said that Scott Rechler, chairman of RXR Realty, was interested in the property because he foresees growth in the area. RXR also purchased 1330 Sixth Avenue in November, and bought a 49 percent stake in 340 Madison Avenue last April. [Crain's]