Solow to ask rents of $200 psf at 9 W. 57th St.

Sheldon Solow, owner of 9 West 57th Street, is planning to carve the 30,000-square-foot, 49th floor of the skyscraper into four pre-built office units to lease at pre-recession rents of $200 per square foot, the New York Observer reported.

Solow drew up the plans just before Christmas, according to Scott Panzer, a leasing broker at Jones Lang LaSalle who took over leasing for at the building last year. The units, which will range in size from 5,000 square feet to 12,000 square feet, will appeal to smaller users, Panzer said, such as hedge funds and private equity firms.

“There are people out there who want to be able to look at where they live from where they work and vice versa,” said Panzer, noting that 15 Central Park West is visible from the tower. “You could have a telescope and look out to see if your nanny is home.”

If the lease up of the 49th floor is successful, the same strategy may be used for the penthouse floor.

As previously reported, Solow obtained a $625 million loan on 9 West 57th Street from Deutsche Bank in December. The loan refinances debt set to mature in February that Solow took out at the height of the bubble in 2007. About $55 billion of property loans are set to come due in 2012, and $19 billion of them were originated at the height of the bubble. But most of them will struggle to refinance, Standard & Poor’s predicted, as property values have decreased about 42 percent from the peak. [NYO]