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The College Board
1984
This universally known organization had always leased it headquarters space in New York City. Our assignment was to take a fresh look at occupancy costs, and the best way to make use of The College Board’s 501-C3 (not for profit) status. Our solution: buy the first ten floors of a landmark property being renovated at 61st Street and Columbus Ave-nue, as a condominium interest. Finance the purchase with New York State Dormitory Authority bonds. The “Building-Within-A-Building” was exempt from real estate taxes, and a low, stable occupancy cost was thus assured for the long term. We also negotiated the purchase of the corner park on the property, across from Fordham University and Lincoln Center.
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Development of Worldwide Plaza
1985
The site of the old Madison Square Garden, at 49th Street and Eighth Avenue, had long been a parking lot awaiting development. One of our clients was interested in leasing enough space to get the 1.6 million square foot project underway, but several developers were trying to buy the site and the owner demanded a price that was prohibitive without a lease commitment such as our client would make. Drawing on our knowledge of devel-opment and leasing, we structured and negotiated lease terms with one of the developers and coordinated the overall transaction with the seller and the developer. Our client’s lease for 630,000 square feet in the base of the office tower drove the entire project.
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Sale of 380 Madison Avenue
1988
This major office property at 46th street and Madison Avenue was owned by a trust estab-lished by the Uris brothers, its developers. When they passed away, leaving the building in trust for their widows, it was badly in need of a thorough upgrade and modernization. Our assignment was to find a way to dispose of the property at a high price without incur-ring a large tax on its substantial increase in value, and without incurring any risk. Our solution was to structure a long-term net lease combined with certain “Put” rights, and to market the concept to a short list of pre-qualified buyers. Our objective was to create an auction among the interested parties. We succeeded, and the beautifully re-clad, re-engineered and thoroughly modernized 380 Madison Avenue is the result.
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Purchase of 609 Fifth Avenue
1989
Deutsche Gennossenschaftsbank was one of the largest banks in Germany, but as a tenant on one floor in Rockefeller Center its presence in the United States was virtually invisi-ble. While not a major space user, the bank wanted to own its headquarters, and to make a major statement in the New York and global banking communities. Our solution was to negotiate the purchase of a “Tenancy In Common” interest in 609 Fifth Avenue, at the corner of 49th Street and Fifth Avenue directly across from Rockefeller Center. The building was completely renovated into a showpiece, and the Bank also signed a long-term lease for space in the property which today bears its name.
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The Credit Lyonnais Transaction at 1301 Avenue of the Americas
1990
We had negotiated a lease for a major law firm in this building, which was undergoing a complete re-development and modernization, when French commercial bank Credit Lyonnais sought to buy an interest in the property, lease a large block of space in it and place its name upon the building. The many options and rights in our client’s lease were squarely in the way of any such deal, although it was in the interest of our client and the building owner to bring Credit Lyonnais into the building. We capitalized upon our client’s lease, and worked with the landlord and other major tenants in the building so that Credit Lyonnais could become a tenant and investor in the building that bore its name.
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The Re-Generation of Worldwide Plaza
1996
By 1996 the developer of Worldwide Plaza had burdened the property with debt and the market for office space was depressed. A client of ours negotiated to acquire advertising agency N. W. Ayer, one of the major tenants in the building, but only needed a fraction of the area that Ayer had leased. Moreover, the Ayer lease was at extremely high rents, almost double the market. Our assignment was to negotiate the surrender of most of Ayer’s space, and the reduction of Ayer’s rent to a market level. As negotiations com-menced, it became clear that our space was the linchpin of the re-capitalization and sale of the entire project. Working with Ayer, with the landlord, and with the buyer of the property, we navigated among their conflicting and competing interests, and negotiated a new favorable lease for our client. That lease enabled the remaining leases in the property to be stabilized, and the building to be re-capitalized with new debt and acquired by The Blackstone Group.
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The Wasserstein Perella Lease
1999
At the height of the market, Wasserstein Perella was being forced out of its space and was looking for a new home. There was hardly enough space to accommodate them in 1301 Avenue of the Americas, but when we heard about Wasserstein’s need we conceived of a way to create sufficient space by re-casting expansion rights in a lease we had nego-tiated for a client in that building, and working with the landlord and other tenants to do the same. In effect, we “created” the necessary space from within the existing lease port-folio of the building. The negotiations were necessarily multi-party, complex, and spread over several continents. At the outset, based on his evaluation of a flow-chart of all of the existing rights and options, the landlord’s stated position was, “It will never happen.” Fortunately, he had mis-read the chart, and worked with us to make the deal happen.
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