Durst, Related push big projects in Las Vegas

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Clockwise from top left: Cushman & Wakefield CEO Glenn Rufrano, John Grotto of the Durst Organization, a rendering of 4 Times Square retail and Ariel Schuster of Robert K. Futterman & Associates

Major New York City developers and their brokers gathered in Las Vegas this week for
the retail trade show RECon and revealed additional details about significant Manhattan
retail locations.

On Monday, the Durst Organization unveiled renderings for the shopping portion of
4 Times Square, known as the Conde Nast Building. Later, a source said the signage
rights on the upper portion of the tower were being offered for $1 million per side of the
building.

That was just one of the many New York City retail locations highlighted in Las Vegas,
home of the International Council of Shopping Centers show held at the Las Vegas
Convention Center. The show, which concluded yesterday, is considered a prime venue
to promote a property because of the approximately 32,000 attendees who tour the halls.

The Durst Organization revealed plans for the Conde Nast Building at 4 Times Square,
during a party outside the convention at restaurant Aureole, at Mandalay Bay Resort &
Casino, to dozens of brokers.

While the overall asking rent for the 42,550 square feet on three floors was $12.3 million
per year, or $290 per square foot, company assistant vice president John Grotto said there
was an unofficial breakdown for each floor.

As part of the breakdown, the 9,704 square feet on the ground floor is priced at $800 per
square foot. The 13,298-square-foot second floor is $200 per foot, and the 19,548-square-
foot third floor is priced at $100 per foot, Grotto said. That is near the average ground
floor asking rent of $757 per foot in the first quarter in Times Square, data from Cushman
& Wakefield shows. The building is at the corner of Broadway and 42nd Street.

In addition, The Real Deal learned the rights for signage at the top of the 48-story
tower are still $1 million for each of the four sides. That’s the same price unnamed
insiders quoted
to the New York Post in 2003.

“They say a $1 million for each face. I am not seeing it,” Alan Miller, senior director at
Eastern Consolidated, said, noting that the high placement made it hard to see.

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Meanwhile at Related Companies’ Hudson Yards project west of 10th Avenue between
30th and 33rd streets, Webber Hudson, an executive vice president at the company’s
Related Urban division, told The Real Deal that the size of the retail space could vary by
300,000 square feet depending on whether one of a number of major department store
tenants signs on by year’s end.

He said the size of the retail space was elastic now, from 500,000 square feet to up to
800,000 square feet. He said the deadline for a tenant to sign up is the end of the year,
so that construction can commence on the retail portion that will be either four floors or
seven.

Hudson said the projected revenue at the retail portion of the site was $1,200 per square
foot, about what sales were for Time Warner Center when it opened. Sales at the Time
Warner Center are now about $1,600 per square foot.

He would not give expected asking rents, but the industry standard varies between 15
percent and 25 percent of sales per foot, which would be between $180 and $300 per
foot. But he cautioned no price per foot had been determined.

Reports said Related has pitched to Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s for the site. Hudson
would not comment on any particular retailers, only saying they were talking with
several.

On a much smaller scale, Ariel Schuster, an executive vice president at Robert K.
Futterman & Associates, was unveiling a new agency at Muss Development’s 345 Adams
Street in Downtown Brooklyn. The corner location of the building has 8,536 square
feet on the ground floor, with an asking rent of $100 per foot. There was a lease out to a
regional restaurant, Schuster said, even before he arrived at the show.

“But we are still marketing it,” because no deal has been signed, he said.

And some availabilities were not yet ready for the full light of day. Even as he was
showing a new Queens listing to brokers at the show, Stu Morden, a senior managing
director at Newmark Knight Frank Retail, was reluctant to reveal it to The Real Deal.
He balked because the strategy involved merging the available space with a larger area
currently occupied by multiple tenants.

“They might get spooked,” he said, closing his pamphlet up.