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CBRE Group closed three of 2012’s five biggest office leases
As 2012 wraps up, it appears that CBRE Group is taking the top spot for the most big-office leasing deals closed this year, the Wall Street Journal reported. CBRE represented tenants in three of 2012’s five biggest transactions: Kaye Scholer, at 250 West 55th Street, Viacom, at 1515 Broadway, and Citigroup, at 601 Lexington Avenue.
The year’s biggest office deal was Viacom’s renewal of its 1.6 million-square-foot lease in Times Square, which boasted a 15-year deal of about $1.2 billion — producing a $36 million commission for the CBRE — according to CompStak, a real-estate data service, cited by the Journal.
Matthew Van Buren, president of CBRE’s New York Tri-State Region, said all three companies “looked extraordinarily hard at new space.” Adding that “Every deal is a compromise of factors. The economics were so compelling that they decided to make existing space work.”
The total value of the top five deals this year was $3.4 billion, down from $4.5 billion last year, but with a larger total square footage of 3.76 million square feet versus 3.1 million square feet in 2011. The other two deals in the top five were Morgan Stanley’s 1.15 million-square-foot lease at 1 New York Plaza and law firm Chadbourne & Parke’s 180,00 square-foot lease at 1301 Sixth Avenue, which were both handled by Newmark Grubb Knight Frank for a total value of a total value of about $1.3 billion and a potential commission of some $39 million. [WSJ] —Christopher Cameron