City’s Human Resources Administration inks 175K SF lease in Bronx’s Hunts Point

Updated: 10:24 a.m., Jan. 14

New York City’s Human Resources Administration has signed a 175,000-square-foot lease in the Hunt’s Point section of the Bronx, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The HRA will move into a complex of four connected buildings that make up the Bank Note complex in Hunts Point, an industrial waterfront area in the eastern part of the Bronx. JRT Realty’s Jodi Pulice and Ellen Israel and Cushman & Wakefield’s Bob Giglio brokered the deal on the city’s behalf.

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Taconic Investment Partners, which along with Denham Wolf Real Estate Services acquired the building in 2007, told the Journal the lease is for 20 years. Taconic added that Urban Health Plan, a nonprofit healthcare provider, has inked a 30,000-square-foot lease, bringing the building to 95 percent capacity.

The 400,000-square-foot complex, built in 1909, is the erstwhile home of American Bank Note Co. Taconic and Denham had invested $20 million in a renovation aimed to attract creative and nonprofit firms to the building, and will invest a further $20 million to make the space viable for the HRA’s move, slated for the middle of 2014.

In 2011, the HRA vacated its Manhattan premises and signed a 20-year, 400,000-square-foot lease at 470 Vanderbilt Avenue in Fort Greene area of Brooklyn, as The Real Deal previously reported. [WSJ]  – Hiten Samtani