Adam Leitman Bailey scores new Downtown digs

Adam Leitman Bailey, a real estate attorney whom The Real Deal once characterized as “public enemy No. 1 for developers,” is relocating his Downtown office to a space more than double the size of his current digs.

Bailey’s eponymous firm inked a deal to sublease 26,000 square feet from the law firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed at One Battery Park Plaza near the tip of Lower Manhattan, sources told The Real Deal. The company has about 50 employees, roughly half of whom are attorneys, and plans to make more hires.

Hughes Hubbard is the largest tenant in the 35-story office tower owned by Rudin Management and Allianz Real Estate of America with 220,000 square feet. The sublease covers growth space the international law firm had been warehousing in the building. There deal runs for about six or seven years with an asking rent of $45 per square foot.

Bailey, citing a non-disclosure agreement, declined to comment. His practice, which also includes work on behalf of landlords and developers, will be relocating from Silverstein Properties’ 120 Broadway, where it occupies more than 10,000 square feet.

An aggressive and loquacious personality who earned a reputation as a nemesis for developers, Bailey found a niche in the wake of the market crash of 2008 helping condo buyers get out of their contracts at troubled projects.

“For a while, he struck fear in the hearts of every developer when he became involved in a case,” said Stuart Saft, a frequent adversary of Bailey’s, told TRD in 2010.

Rudin sold a 49-percent stake at One Battery Park in June to the Munich-based Allianz in a transaction that valued the 870,000-square-foot property at $365 million.

CBRE’s Adam Foster represented Bailey in the negotiations with Hughes Hubbard & Reed, which was represented by Neil Goldmacher, Chris Mongeluzo, Hal Stein and Brian Goldman at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank. The brokers declined to comment.