NYC’s 10 biggest office leases signed in August

For leases with known tenants, Coach’s Hudson Yards leaseback was month’s largest deal

From left: Coach CEO Victor Luis and a rendering of 10 Hudson Yards, WeWork CEO Adam Neumann and 12 East 49th Street
From left: Coach CEO Victor Luis and a rendering of 10 Hudson Yards, WeWork CEO Adam Neumann and 12 East 49th Street

Coach once owned its space at 10 Hudson Yards. But in August, the company sold its ownership in the project to German insurer Allianz and then leased it back, in a 738,000-square-foot deal that was the largest lease transaction in August.

There is talk of slower leasing velocity and a softer office market, but plenty of large deals are still happening. Using CoStar Group data and our own analysis, The Real Deal put together a list of the 10 biggest lease deals inked in August. 

1) Coach makes patently good deal at 10 Hudson Yards – 738,000 square feet

They don’t own it anymore, but it’s still their 738,000 square feet. The luxury leathermonger is already sprawled out across 16 floors (floors 9 through 24) at Related Companies’ [TRDataCustom] 10 Hudson Yards tower. August’s deal was structured as a leaseback transaction, part of the terms of Coach’s sale to Allianz. CBRE’s Mary Ann Tighe, Gregory Tosko and Lauren Corrinet represented Coach on the monster office lease, the third-largest so far this year.

coach10hudson

Coach’s lobby at 10 Hudson Yards (Credit: Steve Freihon for Related)

2) WeWork catching up to McDonalds for Midtown locations – 159,306 square feet

In what will be its twelfth Midtown location, WeWork signed a lease for almost 160,000 square feet at Kato International’s 12 East 49th Street. That’s not far behind the number of McDonald’s fast-food restaurants TRD could count in the area (19). Kato was represented in-house on the deal while it’s unclear who represented WeWork. Sources told TRD at the time that Adam Neumann and co. were taking 10 floors at the tower.

3) Swiss insurer heads to 4 WTC– 131,856 square feet

Zurich American Insurance chose to downsize last month when they moved to Silverstein Properties’ 4 World Trade Center, taking three floors that amounted to a 23 percent downsizing from their previous digs at Brookfield Property Partners’ One Liberty Plaza. Silverstein’s Jeremy Moss represented the landlord in-house along with a CBRE team led by Mary Ann Tighe and Steven Siegel. Martin Horner, Shannon Rzeznikiewicz and Robert Romano of JLL represented the insurer.

4) MarketAxess Holdings takes space in Hudson Yards– 83,000 square feet

The securities broker MarketAxess Holdings signed an 83,000-square-foot lease at 55 Hudson Yards, the Far West Side building co-owned by Related, Oxford and Mitsui Fudosan America. CBRE’s Brad Gerla represented MarketAxess. His colleagues Robert Alexander and Howard Fiddle represented Related, along with the developer’s in-house leasing executive Stephen Winter.

The deal will put MarketAxess up on the fifteenth through seventeenth floors at the under-construction tower.

5) ICAP leaves New Jersey for Times Square – 82,442 square feet

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Douglas Durst has had quite a bit of space to fill since Conde Nast started moving out of 4 Times Square in 2014. ICAP, a New Jersey-based electronic trading firm, took two of those floors at the tourist-laden locale last month. JLL’s Scott Panzer and Shannon Rzeznikiewicz represented ICAP, while the Durst Organization’s Tom Bow represented the landlord in-house. When TRD first reported news of the deal in May, asking rents for the space were $85 per square foot.

6) WeWork in Midtown, revisited – 77,930 square feet

WeWork’s second Midtown lease of the month was for a smaller space spanning five entire floors at Mitsubishi Corporation and L&L Holding’s 142 West 57th Street (the coworking unicorn already has East 57th Street covered). WeWork is expected to pay $70 a foot in a 16-year agreement. JLL’s Peter Riguardi and Alexander Chudnoff represented WeWork in the deal, while Andrew Wiener of L&L represented the landlords in-house.

7) A clean start for Health and Mental Hygiene department – 60,476 square feet

The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene took over 60,000 square feet at Savanna’s One Court Square tower in Long Island City. The department will sublease two floors from Citigroup, the company that occupies the majority of the tower’s space. Cushman & Wakefield’s Robert Giglio represented the city, while CBRE’s Ryan Alexander, Michael Lee and John Reinertsen represented CitiGroup.

8) Another international tenant heading to 4 WTC – 44,711 square feet

Global Atlantic Financial Group, a financial services company once part of Goldman Sachs, is taking close to 45,000 square feet at Silverstein’s 4 World Trade Center tower. They’ll occupy the entire 51st floor for 15 years. The firm holds some $45 billion in assets according to its website. Silverstein’s Jeremy Moss represented the landlord in-house along with a CBRE team led by Mary Ann Tighe and Steven Siegel, while Global Atlantic was represented by Savills Studley’s Erik Schmall and Michael Mathias.

9) EEOC renews Downtown lease – 39,721 square feet

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission renewed its lease at the Stawski Partners-Owned 33 Whitehall Street in the Financial District. The group’s human resources-focused division will take floors four, five and 11 at the building. CBRE took care of the deal on behalf of Stawski. No tenant representative was reported to CoStar.

10) Production company expands at 325 Hudson – 30,697 square feet

Embassy Row, the production company behind Jerry Seinfeld’s web series “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” expanded its current space at Jamestown Properties 325 Hudson Street building in Manhattan’s Hudson Square, originally developed as a warehouse in 1965.

Savills Studley’s Erik Schmall and Allyson Bowen represented Embassy Row, while their colleague negotiated on behalf of the landlords with colleague Kyle Ciminelli. Last year, the design firm Frog inked a deal to relocate to Dumbo Heights in Downtown Brooklyn from 325 Hudson, where CoStar shows it occupies the full seventh and part of the 10th floors.