Law firm Sedgwick relocates NYC office to 2 WFC

The San Francisco, Calif.-based international law firm Sedgwick inked a deal to move its New York City office to 2 World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan, information in real estate database CoStar Group shows.

The law firm, represented by Studley brokers David Goldstein and Greg Taubin, will reduce its footprint in New York — moving from about 75,446 square feet at 125 Broad Street, also in Lower Manhattan, to 43,374 square feet at Brookfield Office Properties’ 1.8 million square foot Class A tower.

Industry sources said the deal was for 10 years and had a starting rent of $56 per square foot, but those figures could not be independently confirmed. That is far above the average Class A asking rent Downtown, which was $43.10 per square foot in August, statistics from Cassidy Turley show. But it’s below some deals Downtown, for example Conde Nast’s 1.1 million square foot deal at 1 World Trade Center reportedly begins at $65 per square foot.

The 1.45-million-square-foot 125 Broad Street is a commercial condominium building, and the space Sedgwick currently occupies is owned by the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, which bought floors 20 through 40 between 1995 and 1998.

Brookfield is chipping away at the approximately 3 million square feet of availabilities coming online at 2 and 4 World Financial Center after the lease to Merrill Lynch signed in 1984 expires in 2013. Insiders say the office landlord may have trouble filling all its space.

Sedgwick opened its New York practice in 1985, where today it has 16 partners in the local office, according to the firm’s web site.

The law firm moved to 125 Broad Street in 1999, news reports from the time say. Then, in 2007, CoStar shows it leasing more space, for the full 75,446 square feet on floors 38 and 39. Studley is currently marketing those floors as a sublease that expires in 2015, marketing material from the brokerage shows.

Brookfield, Studley and Sedgwick did not respond to calls for comment.