Citigroup eyes HQ spots as clock ticks on Park Ave lease

From left: Rendering of 2 World Trade Center, 388 Greenwich Streetand 390 Greenwich Street
From left: Rendering of 2 World Trade Center, 388 Greenwich Streetand 390 Greenwich Street

As the clock ticks on Citigroup’s 399 Park Avenue headquarters lease, the bank is zeroing in on a new nerve center. Citi has narrowed down the contenders to three locations: an existing twin-building complex it occupies at 388and 390 Greenwich Street in Tribeca, 2 World Trade Center and a Hudson Yards locale on the far West Side.

The Greenwich Street site, said to the frontrunner, is a more than 2.5 million-square-foot spread it sold to landlord SL Green Realty in 2007 for nearly $1.6 billion.

“By renovating their floors there, they can make them much more efficient,” a source involved in that deal told Crain’s.

Should Citi choose the World Trade Center site, the financial institution would anchor 2 World Trade Center, a more than 2 million-square-foot office tower developed by Silverstein Properties.

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Related Companies, meanwhile, the developer of the $15 billion complex of residential, office, retail and public space at Hudson Yards, is said to be wooing Citi into a deal to occupy a tower or multiple properties at the far West Side site.

CBRE Group is working with Citibank in the negotiations. SL Green, Silverstein and Related declined to comment to Crain’s.

While the timing for the decision is not yet set in stone, sources told Crain’s the bank is now engaged in negotiations with three landlords.

“We have been looking at ways over the last several years to make more efficient use of our office space in New York, including consolidating locations,” a Citi spokesperson told Crain’s. “With several leases expiring in the near future, we also have been looking at new space that is coming on the market.” [Crain’s]Julie Strickland