Accounting Firm Doubles Space at Vornado’s Penn 1

Vornado Realty Trust says its upgrades of office tower Penn 1 are paying dividends (something the firm itself stopped doing last year because of the market downturn).

Accounting firm Weaver and Tidwell agreed to take 36,500 square feet at the Midtown tower, the landlord announced on Thursday. The firm will occupy the entire 28th floor, moving from 11,000 square feet at a Bryant Park building.

A firm it merged with last year, Buchbinder Tunick & Company, had been leasing 8,000 square feet at Penn 1, so combined they are more than doubling their footprint.

The consolidation of the Manhattan offices to Penn 1 comes via an 11-year lease. The asking rent on the 28th floor was $105 per square foot, according to a source familiar with the arrangement.

Newmark’s Neil Goldmacher and Michael Horn represented Weaver, while Vornado was represented in-house by a team including Josh Glick and Anthony Cugini.

In a statement, Weaver managing partner John Mackel pointed to the property’s proximity to Penn Station and the building’s updated amenities as key factors in the decision.

Vornado, led by Steven Roth, poured $450 million into Penn 1, formerly known as 1 Pennsylvania Plaza, to improve the property’s 55 floors. Updates at the 2.5-million-square-foot complex included new plazas, a curtain wall, refreshed elevators and lobbies, LEED certification and other sustainability and carbon-cutting measures, as well 160,000 square feet of food and recreational amenities.

LifeTime Group also leased 53,000 square feet, in part to install pickleball courts.

Office leasing activity followed. Last July, financial services firm Canaccord Genuity Group signed a lease for 75,000 square feet, consolidating from two locations. Prior to that, Samsung signed a deal for 36,000 square feet for its North America ad sales group.

Other notable tenants at Penn 1 include Dell, Empire Heath, Gusto, Hartford Insurance, Jacobs Engineering, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo.

Since launching the redevelopment of its Penn District, Vornado has secured 1.5 million square feet of new leases, renewals and expansions.

Monthly leasing volume fell in Manhattan by almost a third from July to August, but was up 3.5 percent year-over-year, according to a Colliers report. Year-to-date activity reached nearly 21 million square feet in August.

If leasing continues at last month’s pace, the borough will surpass 30 million square feet in volume for the first time in five years.