Eliot Spitzer plans boutique office building at Hudson Yards

Former governor to build 300,000 sf of office at 451 10th Avenue

451 10th Avenue with Spitzer Engineering's two development sites (inset) and Eliot Spitzer
451 10th Avenue with Spitzer Engineering's two development sites (inset) and Eliot Spitzer

Eliot Spitzer is planning a boutique office building on the site of a Hudson Yards parking lot he secretly took control of last year.

The former-governor-turned-developer is looking to build a roughly 415,000-square-foot mixed-use tower with some 300,000 square feet of office space at the northwest corner of 10th Avenue and 35th Street. The site in question sits adjacent to one he purchased for $88 million in late 2013.

Spitzer quietly gained control of the corner lot at 451 Tenth Avenue, which property records show Nassau County-based developer Jorge Madruga’s Maddd Equities entered into a 99-year lease on last year for $62 million.

A spokesperson for Spitzer declined to comment. The developer’s application with the Department of City Planning shows he intends to put up a 414,708-square-foot building with some 311,000 square feet of commercial office and retail space, with the remainder set aside for residential use.

Next door, Spitzer Engineering plans to build a hotel with a possible residential component in a project of nearly identical size.

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Following the death of his father last year, Spitzer took a much more active role in his family’s sprawling real estate portfolio, which is estimated to be worth more than $1 billion. He’s cashed in some of the family’s trophy real estate holdings, such as the Crown Building, which he and partner the Winter family sold earlier this year to Jeff Sutton and General Growth Properties for a whopping $1.78 billion. In addition to his Hudson Yards projects, the developer is also planning a pair of large rental buildings on the Williamsburg waterfront.

Diving into the business has kept him largely out of the public eye, but he is scheduled to give the keynote address at TerraCRG’s Only Brooklyn Real Estate Summit next week.