The newest potential tenant at SL Green Realty’s 1.7 million-square-foot One Vanderbilt needs no introduction with the bigwigs at the real estate investment trust.
Greenberg Traurig, the law firm that’s represented SL Green in blockbuster deals like the $2.5 billion purchase of 11 Madison Avenue and the $453 million sale of the leasehold at the Lipstick Building, is negotiating to lease space at the under-construction supertall office tower, sources told The Real Deal.
The exact square footage under negotiation wasn’t immediately clear. Greenberg occupies roughly 200,000 square feet on a lease expiring in late 2021 at the MetLife Building at 200 Park Avenue, where the firm’s attorneys can peer out their windows at the steel superstructure rising out of the ground for what will eventually be the 1,401-foot-tall tower.
The law firm is also negotiation to lease back-office space at the Graybar Building at 420 Lexington Avenue, where SL Green’s headquarters are located.
A representative for SL Green, which is developing the tower with the National Pension Service of Korea and Hines, declined to comment. A spokesperson for Greenberg Traurig said there is currently no deal in place.
“We have not entered into any arrangement for our future New York space needs at this time,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “We have great respect for SL Green and what it is creating at One Vanderbilt, which will no doubt be an extraordinary project.”
SL Green has long said it planned to wait until next year to launch its leasing efforts in full force, in order to ink deals closer to when the building is scheduled for completion in 2020. But company executives had said they would entertain potential deals if they came along, and there’s recently been activity.
In September, German lender DZ Bank and its affiliate, DVB Bank, signed leases totaling 35,500 square feet in the building. And firms like the Carlyle Group and McKinsey & Company have also reportedly shown interest in the tower, though the latter firm last month inked a deal to relocate its Midtown headquarters to 200,000 square feet at Silverstein Properties’ 3 World Trade Center.
SL Green signed One Vanderbilt anchor tenant TD Bank to 200,000 square feet in 2014. Chef Daniel Boloud earlier this year agreed to open an 11,000-square-foot restaurant on the tower’s second floor.
SL Green executives on Monday revealed the company is looking to raise more than $200 million in EB-5 funding to help construct the office tower.