SL Green Gets Boosts with Leasing Deals at Park Ave. Office Towers

By:  Ellen Cans

SL Green, which prides itself as New York City’s largest office landlord, had plenty to brag about at Monday’s annual investor conference call. The company, which as of the end of 2019 owned 43 commercial properties comprising a total of 14,438,964 square feet, has signed some impressive leases for its Park Avenue office towers.

As reported by the NY Post, the company just closed a 270,000 square-foot mega-deal, with investment bank PJT Partners.  PJT renewed its existing 140,000 sf at 280 Park Ave, and also converted an 80,000 square-foot sublease into a 130,000 square-foot direct lease.  The 43-story building at 280 Park Ave, on 48th and 49th street and near Grand Central Terminal, is owned in a joint venture by SL Green and Vornado Realty Trust.  It offers 1.25 million square-feet of space, and in 2015 underwent a $150 million modernization which included a new, block-long lobby as well as infrastructure upgrades.

The Class A building boasts close proximity to the subway and LIRR, an oversized lobby with 25-foot ceilings which connects to an interior atrium with a reflecting pool,  and houses the world renowned Four Seasons Restaurant on site.  Other prominent tenants at the office building include:  IBM, Wells Fargo, Trian Fund, Mount Kellett Capital Management, Blue Mountain Capital, Lloyds America,  Harvest Partners, ORIX, Omnicom Group, and Greystar.

Per the Post, SL Green’s other Park Ave skyscraper, at 245 Park Ave, also inked a new lease deal.  In November, Stonepeak Partners signed a 15-year lease for 77,000 square feet at the office tower.  The 48-story building, between 46th and 47th Streets, is one of the few to require its own zip code, spanning an entire city block.  Offering 1.8 million square feet of space, SL Green had purchased 245 Park Ave in 2022, buying it out of a bankruptcy deal.  It tapped architects KPF to work on the building’s redesign.    Also, Swedish private equity firm EQT Partners recently inked its own lease deal to take on 76,000 square feet at 245 Park.

SL Green also owns 450 Park Ave., another Class A office tower, which it bought for $455 million.  Located at the southwest corner of 57th Street the black granite and glass building has 33-stories and offers close to 334,000 square feet of luxury office space.

SL Green declined to confirm or comment on any of the recent lease deals.

SL Green got a boast even before Monday’s investors call, with analysts from BTIG renewing the REIT’s “buy” rating.  The analyst said SLG “is better positioned today to benefit from flight-to-quality.”  The BTIG analysts credited SLG with “significantly repositioning its portfolio over the past seven years”, and cited “strong execution in a challenging year”.  Per the Post, despite all the optimism, BGIT said that SL Green CEO Marc Holliday, will likely need to answer investor’s questions about its NYC casino bid with Caesars Entertainment to put a casino in its Times Square office building at 1515 Broadway.

The Broadway League strongly opposed a casino at the site, saying it would bring “economic and social disruption,” and “overwhelm the already densely congested area”.   Also, investors will be asking about leasing progress at SLG’s newly redeveloped One Madison Avenue, another massive acquisition which offers 1.4 million square-feet of commercial space and which recently underwent a $2.3 billion redevelopment.