Game, set, match: Ackman finalizes 67K sf Far West Side lease

Hedge funder Bill Ackman, who’s been known to take his tennis a little too seriously, finally inked the deal that will pave the way for his Hell’s Kitchen offices complete with rooftop court.

Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management and the Pershing Square Foundation signed a lease for 67,000 square feet at the former Ford Motor Co. building at 787 11th Avenue, the New York Post reported.

Along with Adam Flatto’s Georgetown Co., Ackman paid $255.5 million last year to buy the eight-story building, which they are overhauling with a design by architect Rafael Vinoly [TRDataCustom].

The rent on the deal was not available.

Georgetown also landed a $349.5 million construction loan from Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies, which replaces a $200 million acquisition loan from JPMorgan Investment Management, the Post reported.

Ackman’s space covers the ninth and tenth floors, which will be clad in glass and set back to form a terrace that wraps around the ninth floor. The addition of an 11th floor rooftop garden will provide an amenity space for all the building’s tenants, as well as the tennis court the hedge funder requested.

The connected sixth and seventh floors and the full eighth floor are still available with asking rents in the mid-$70s per square foot. Occupancy is set for 2017.

A CBRE team led by Mary Ann Tighe has the agency.

Ackman is a huge tennis fan. A recent Vanity Fair story revealed that he once took a charity game with John McEnroe quite seriously, slamming a shot into the former sporting pro’s body and walking away without apologizing.

The slowdown with hedge funds has dragged down rental growth in Midtown in recent months, according to a report by brokerage JLL.   [NYP] – Rich Bockmann