Travel manager Tzell near deal for 90K sf at 1633 Broadway

Paramount Group might be breaking up large block of available space

Albert Behler and 1633 Broadway
Albert Behler and 1633 Broadway

Travel-management company Tzell Travel Group is making arrangements to jet-set north of Times Square.

The company, which arranges business travel for corporations as well as personal vacations, has a lease out for roughly 90,000 square feet at Paramount Group’s 1633 Broadway, sources told The Real Deal.

Representatives for Paramount were not immediately available for comment. A spokesperson for Tzell wrote in an email, “We periodically evaluate our real estate needs, as we consider our ongoing business needs and growth. We have not signed a new lease, and Tzell’s current lease is through 2022.”

Asking rents in the 2.6 million-square-foot building range from $80 to $90 per square foot.

The floors Tzell is negotiating for weren’t immediately clear, but if they are between the 35th and 38th stories that would mean Paramount has decided to break up a large, contiguous block of space it got back from the professional services firm Deloitte in April after the company departed for 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

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Because they’re fewer and farther between, large contiguous blocks can command a premium over space that’s broken up into smaller availabilities. But in Midtown, there’s concern that there is not enough demand from large tenants looking to fill the many large blocks available.

Last year, Newmark Knight Frank put out a report saying it was tracking 80 blocks of space 100,000 square feet or larger that were either available or set to become available in the near future, a 60 percent increase over the figure they were tracking in 2007.

On previous earnings calls, executives from Paramount were noncommittal on whether or not they would break the space up. Earlier this year, the company leased 50,000 square feet on the full 25th floor to the media-sales office of newspaper publisher Gannett.

Tzell is now based at the Blackstone Group’s 119 West 40th Street, just a few blocks south from Paramount’s tower in the Garment District, where it signed a renewal and expansion in 2011 for a little more than 64,000 square feet.

(To view more of Paramount Group’s commercial sales transactions, click here)