Sherwood, Paramount snag 72K sf tenant for 440 Ninth Ave.

Shortly before Sherwood Equities and Paramount Group put their tower at 440 Ninth Avenue on the market last week, they struck a deal with fashion importer E.S. Originals to take about 72,000 square feet at the West Side property, The Real Deal has learned from CompStak.

E.S. Originals, which sources footwear and materials for brands such as Nautica and Hello Kitty, will pay rents starting at around $40 per square foot for floors six through eight in a 13-year deal at the 18-story, 412,000-square-foot tower, the CompStak data show.

“This last deal basically stabilizes our rent roll,” said Paramount’s vice president of acquisitions, Daniel Lauer, but referred further requests for comment to leasing executives at the firm, who could not be reached by press time.

An executive with the landlord who was involved in the transaction confirmed the terms, but declined to comment further.

Representatives from E.S. Originals, Sherwood and Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, which handles leasing at the building, could not immediately be reached for comment.

E.S. Originals will leave its current space at Brookfield Office Properties’ 450 West 33rd Street, where it occupies a little over 25,000 square feet, according to CoStar Group data. Representatives for Brookfield could not be reached for comment.

Sherwood and Paramount paid about $160 million in 2008 for the 440 Ninth Avenue building, which is anchored by electronics store B & H and is also home to Internet music company Spotify, according to CoStar. The partnership put the building on the market last week, and expects to make a tidy profit from the sale, as a smaller nearby building at 333 West 34th Street sold for $220 million in June.

Sherwood recently had a major windfall from the sale of its 350-366 10th Avenue site to former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt for $167 million, having paid only a shade over $40 million for the property in 2011.