One of the world’s top alternative asset companies — and one intimately familiar with New York real estate — is coming through for Manhattan’s office market.
Blackstone agreed to extend its lease at Rudin Management’s 345 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, where the company has its headquarters, Business Insider reported. The company is also expanding its footprint at the property.
Blackstone is growing its office presence by roughly 30 percent, jumping from about 750,000 square feet to nearly 1 million square feet. The company is also locking in through 2034, a six-year extension from when its lease was previously set to expire.
Stephen Schwartzman’s company will occupy 28 floors, or more than half of the 1.9 million-square-foot tower. Blackstone has been at 345 Park Avenue since its beginnings, leasing 70,000 square feet there in 1988, three years after the founding of the company.
Blackstone needed more space as the company’s growth continued exploding. Its workforce increased 50 percent from the end of 2020 to the end of 2023, counting more than 4,700 employees within its ranks.
Asking rent on the updated lease was not disclosed. JLL’s Peter Riguardi represented Blackstone in the deal.
The company previously expanded its footprint by 80,000 square feet in 2021, when it also extended its lease for an additional year through 2028. Blackstone also occupies space at 601 Lexington Avenue.
There’s been scuttlebutt, however, that Blackstone may look to anchor its own office building down the road, a la what JPMorgan Chase is doing at 270 Park Avenue.
Nearly 2 million square feet of office space was leased last month in Midtown and about 3 million square feet was leased across Manhattan’s three central business districts, according to a Colliers report. That represented a 70 percent increase year-over-year, hinting that the borough’s office market may finally be leveling off after difficult post-pandemic years.
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