Jefferies Group snubs World Trade Center towers, renews at 520 Madison

520 Madison Avenue
520 Madison Avenue

Jefferies Group has renewed its 450,000-square-foot lease at 520 Madison Avenue, putting rest to speculation that the investment bank would move to a new location at Midtown West or at the World Trade Center site, Crain’s reported. The renewal adds 15 years to Jefferies’ lease in the 43-story, 1 million-square-foot tower, which is owned by Tishman Speyer. Jefferies will occupy two spaces in the tower; a large block of space on floors 2 to 13, and a smaller, higher-priced space on floors 16 to 20. In the first week of January, SL Green Realty had indicated that a deal was expected, as The Real Deal previously reported. The bank’s hesitation to move reflects the reluctance to invest in building out a new office space, which would require specialized and expensive infrastructure, such as trading systems, to be installed.

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Jefferies decision comes in the wake of similar renewals by other large banks, including UBS, which recently renewed a 900,000-square-foot lease at 1285 Sixth Avenue, and Morgan Stanley, which inked a 1-million-square-foot renewal at 1 New York Plaza in Lower Manhattan last year. [Crain’s] –Hiten Samtani