Double or nothing: Compass expands in Midtown at SL Green property

Firm now has 49K sf at 10 East 53rd

10 East 53rd Street, Robert Reffkin and Marc Holliday
10 East 53rd Street, Robert Reffkin and Marc Holliday

Compass is more than doubling its footprint in Midtown with a deal to add 32,000 square feet at SL Green Realty’s 10 East 53rd Street.

The residential brokerage signed an 11-year lease for the fourth and fifth floors of the 37-story building, the firm said. The deal gives Compass a total of 49,000 square feet at the tower, a 390,000-square-foot property just east of Fifth Avenue. Compass leased 17,000 square feet on the 16th and 17th floors last year.

The asking rent was in the mid-$70s per square foot.

Ethan Silverstein of Cushman & Wakefield represented Compass in the lease. SL Green was represented by a JLL team including Paul Glickman, Cynthia Wasserberger, Benjamin Bass, Paul Milunec, Leah Kessner and David Kaufman.

Compass currently leases around 180,000 square feet in New York City, including its headquarters at 90 Fifth Avenue in Union Square. Last year, the firm took over the two remaining floors at RFR Realty’s 113,418-square-foot building. It is currently subletting two floors.

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Nationwide, Compass is growing at whiplash-inducing speed following a $450 million investment from SoftBank in December. The cash infusion, which valued Compass around $2.2 billion, came shortly after CEO Robert Reffkin outlined his vision to have 20 percent market share in 20 top U.S. markets by 2020.

Reffkin has also been vocal about plans to double Compass’ office count to 12 in New York this year.

In 2017, Compass opened three offices in the city — on the Upper East Side, Cobble Hill and Upper West Side. It recently launched in Long Island City, to the chagrin of local players.

The Manhattan-based firm was No. 4 on The Real Deal’s recent ranking of top residential firms. It closed $1.37 billion in sell-side deals in 2017, and ended the year with 713 agents, up from 300 in 2016. It had 850 agents in New York as of last month.