Extell’s Gem Tower taps Cushman to lure traditional office tenants

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From left: Stuart Romanoff, executive vice president at Cushman & Wakefield, and a rendering of the International Gem Tower
Extell Development President Gary Barnett has returned to his original plan for the $750 million International Gem Tower at 50 West 47th Street, the New York Post reported, as he has decided to lease the top floors to traditional office tenants.

The 34-story, 745,000-square-foot tower, planned for completion late next year, will get a separate entrance at 55 West 46th Street for tenants of the top 14 floors to use as traditional office space. The first 20 floors are comprised of 400,000 square feet of commercial condominiums dedicated for jewelry industry use. They are about 65 percent sold with an asking price of about $1,000 per square foot, the Post said.

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Extell chose a Cushman & Wakefield team led by Stuart Romanoff, Franklin Speyer and Alan Wildes to find tenants for the office space at an asking price of between $100 and $135 per foot. The floors are 22,500 square feet each, and Romanoff said they “should appeal to very high-end corporate, financial and legal users.”

The building has garnered support and opposition within the gem industry. While some praise the arrival of a building designed specifically for gem traders use (including, for example, a secure basement delivery system), others say Extell is poaching tenants from existing structures and vacuuming a block’s worth of businesses into one building. The Gem Tower currently reaches about two-thirds of its expected height. [Post]