Major asset manager moves to 660 Fifth Avenue

Brookfield Properties better have a big enough safety deposit box for the multi-billion dollar asset manager moving into 660 Fifth Avenue.

Brookfield signed 400 Capital Management to a lease at the Plaza District building, formerly known as 666 Fifth Avenue, Bloomberg reported. The 25,000-square-foot lease is for the 27th floor of the 39-story property.

The incoming tenant is an alternative-credit investment firm, specializing in structured credit. The company has $5.8 billion in assets under management.

The tenant is more than doubling the space it was already leasing in New York, where the firm is based; 400 Capital is set to move into 660 Fifth Avenue in 2024.

Brookfield has spent years redeveloping the property, which has been mired in controversy.

It purchased a 99-year ground lease in 2018 for $1.3 billion, taking the property off the hands of Kushner Companies. Questions were quickly raised about whether or not Jared Kushner leveraged foreign policy connections to secure a bailout at the building.

The concerns were linked to the Qatari government’s investments with Brookfield, leaving some wondering if the government was trying to curry favor with the Trump administration. Former Brookfield Properties chairman Ric Clark called those “conspiracy theories.”

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Brookfield signs first tenant at 660 Fifth Avenue

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Brookfield has since been repositioning the property and showing previous tenants the door. In the first half of 2020, Brookfield bought out at least five tenants at a cost of $22.7 million.

The $400 million (there’s that number again) redevelopment of the 1.2-milllion-square-foot property is almost finished, including a new lobby, elevators and facade. Earlier, a Brookfield executive predicted the building could be fully leased by the end of the year or shortly thereafter.

In May, Australian financial services company Macquarie Group became the first tenant at the revamped property, leasing 220,000 square feet across six floors. The anchor tenant will also have 30,000 square feet of outdoor terraces, a private lobby and entrance and signage rights at the top of the building.

— Holden Walter-Warner