Inside ITG’s lease at One Liberty Plaza

When Investment Technology Group, the global market research firm that inked the largest lease of the year last week at One Liberty Plaza, began its search for new office space, the company knew that time was of the essence, but was still unwilling to compromise on certain things, the New York Observer reported.

ITG’s current space at 380 Madison, at 46th Street, is going to either be fully renovated or completely torn down, the paper said, making its departure fairly urgent in the world of commercial real estate. On top of that, ITG insisted on a column-free space, which can be difficult to find in quantity.

But John Hennessy and Neil Goldmacher of Newmark Knight Frank led ITG to Brookfield Properties’ One Liberty Plaza, between Broadway and Trinity Place, where they found state-of-the-art, column-free space and were even able to set up their infrastructure so that they have their own power grid, independent from the rest of the building.

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The building also features back-up generator, which are often important to financial tenants.

“Tenants that have critical action plans, like at ITG, that can’t go down because they have critical infrastructure that has to be backed up, they’ll do it themselves,” said Duncan McCuaig, a vice president at Brookfield who oversaw lease negotiations.

The firm eventually signed a 16-year lease for 132,000 feet at the building. Asking rents were $49 per square foot, the paper said. [NYO]