Two years into a quest for a new or renovated headquarters, American Express is talking to Larry Silverstein about building a long-awaited skyscraper at 2 World Trade Center.
The financial services firm is in an exclusive negotiating period with Silverstein and could decide as soon as this month whether to move forward with the 93-year-old developer. Silverstein has been trying for most of this century to secure an anchor tenant, which he needs to get a loan to build the tower.
American Express could also choose another Manhattan trophy project or renovate its current home at 200 Vesey Street — a 54-story building previously known as 3 World Financial Center where it owns and occupies the top portion.
“It’s their decision to make,” said a source familiar with the talks with Silverstein. “They are weighing the expense of a brand new, state-of-the-art office building, but a decision could be made in the next couple of weeks — or they could extend the time.”
Although American Express faces no deadline to leave its headquarters, Silverstein “wants [2 World Trade Center] done yesterday and wants it started in his lifetime,” said a source familiar with his thinking.
American Express hired Cushman & Wakefield two years ago to explore a relocation or renovation, as The Real Deal first reported. “Silverstein must be drooling,” an insider noted at the time, referring to the developer’s desire to get 2 World Trade Center going. “It would be the best site for Amex because the employees are already used to the area.”
The tower, along with the closer-to-fruition 5 World Trade Center, would be the last major piece of the World Trade Center redevelopment, which has been a career-defining mission for Silverstein. Six weeks before the Twin Towers were destroyed on 9/11, the longtime landlord signed a 99-year ground lease with the Port Authority for the site.
Silverstein in 2021 tapped architect Norman Foster to replace Bjarke Ingels as 2 World Trade Center’s designer, six years after hiring Ingels to replace Foster. But the project could be larger or smaller than the Foster rendering that was leaked in 2022.
“You can build as much as you can finance — there is a lot of flexibility in the square footage,” a source said. A tower could be 3 million square feet or more.
Paul Gioioso, whom Amex recently hired away from Johnson & Johnson, is guiding Amex’s decision-making process in tandem with Cushman & Wakefield.
On the other side of the negotiating table, Silverstein has CBRE and its tri-state CEO since 2002, Mary Ann Tighe.
Silverstein has been close to finding a primary occupant before. He had hired the Bjarke Ingels Group to redesign the building to suit media giant News Corp., which later backed out over costs. Citigroup was also close at one point, a source said, but turned tail after a bad quarter. Jane Street Capital was in the mix more recently but not anymore, sources told TRD.
Once News Corp. dropped out, Silverstein brought back Foster + Partners, which had sketched out an initial replacement with four angled diamond tops. This time, Silverstein told Lord Norman Foster to design a building that “worked for anyone” and maximized outdoor space.
Foster came up with a plan for an all-electric building that could be sculpted to fit a tenant’s needs. The trade center gets discounted power from the state and there are no taxes on corporate build-outs.
Long history
Amex, which owns half of the building it calls home, has been Downtown since 1858. In 1982, while headquartered at 125 Broad Street, it announced it would lease space at Olympia & York’s future World Financial Center. It would be part of the new Battery Park City, created with landfill left over from the construction of the World Trade Center.
The next year, Amex decided it wanted to own its new headquarters and cut a complicated deal with Olympia & York. It bought the ground lease from Battery Park City for what was to become the 2.5 million-square-foot 3 World Financial Center. Upon its completion in 1986, American Express and its then-subsidiary Lehman Bros. paid Olympia & York $478 million.
When Olympia & York later went bankrupt, its executives, including Ric Clark, formed Brookfield Financial Properties and took over the World Financial Center project, which was eventually renamed Brookfield Place.
After the pyramid-topped tower on Vesey Street was severely damaged on Sept. 11, 2001, Lehman moved uptown and sold the lower half of the building to Brookfield Financial Properties, the majority owner of the World Financial Center.
American Express has since also sold the master lease for the street-level and mezzanine retail spaces to Brookfield, which owns all the other retail space in the complex and a majority of the office towers.
Brookfield still owns the lower half of the four-decade-old Amex tower and likely aims to keep Amex in place and perhaps team up on a makeover. More than 200,000 square feet are available in the building’s lower portion and could be used as swing space during renovations.
Amex’s options
American Express, which also has offices uptown at Rudin’s 345 Park Avenue, has a myriad of choices besides 2 World Trade, although not all have enough future expansion capabilities.
Related Companies is shopping the 1.2 million-square-foot 70 Hudson Yards plus 2 million square feet of offices in its planned western rail yards towers. Joseph Moinian and Boston Properties are still pitching the 1.85-million-square-foot 3 Hudson Boulevard.
Tishman Speyer is planning a 1 million square-foot-plus 99 Hudson Boulevard, while further east in that corridor Vornado has plans for a 2.7-million-square-foot 15 Penn.
RXR and TF Cornerstone are also wooing tenants for the 3-million-square-foot 175 Park Avenue adjacent to Grand Central Terminal that will have 2.1 million square feet of offices.
Amex wants to own its space, one source said, but how much of any tower it would own and the ownership structure remain to be determined.
Silverstein has penned a new memoir, “The Rising: The Twenty-Year Battle to Rebuild the World Trade Center,” billed as “an epic tale of business, politics, and engineering by the man who spent two decades working to make it happen.” A reception is planned for its release date, Sept. 10.
An announcement about 2 World Trade Center would be a compelling storyline for the solemn 9/11 commemoration the following day.
In a statement, American Express said, “We are conducting a thorough assessment of our corporate headquarters located at 200 Vesey Street, including the potential to refurbish our current space or relocate to another facility in Manhattan.”
The firm added that it is committed to remaining in Manhattan.
The other companies and brokers involved would not comment or did not respond to requests for comment.
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