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Merchants Bancorp inks Grand Central lease
Address: 10 Grand Central, Manhattan
Landlord: Marx Realty
Tenant: Merchants Bancorp
Lease size: 10,000 square feet
Lease term: 10 years
Asset type: Office
Brokers: JLL’s Mitchell Konsker, Benjamin Bass, Kip Orban, Carlee Palmer and Thomas Schwartz represented the landlord.
Maman bakery opens in Midtown East
Address: 10 Grand Central, Manhattan
Landlord: Marx Realty
Tenant: Maman
Lease size: 3,000 square feet
Lease term: 10 years
Asset type: Retail
Brokers: JLL’s Mitchell Konsker, Benjamin Bass, Kip Orban, Carlee Palmer and Thomas Schwartz represented the landlord.
Three new leases signed at Grand Central office tower
June 6, 2022
Three new leases totaling 16,000 square feet of office and retail space were signed at 10 Grand Central, marking 51,000 square feet of space leased at the tower since April.
“10 Grand Central continues to play a pivotal role in Midtown Manhattan’s ongoing return to the office,” Marx Realty CEO Craig Deitelzweig said.
Marx Realty owns 10 Grand Central, which is located at at 155 E. 44th St.
Merchants Bancorp and Strata Equity Group have secured office space for their first New York City locations that will serve as their regional headquarters while Maman, a French bakery, has grabbed a ground floor retail space.
Merchants Bancorp signed a 10-year, 10,000-square-foot lease on the building’s 24th floor.
Strata Equity Group signed a 7-year, 3,000-square-foot lease on the building’s 23rd floor.
Maman’s ground floor space spans 3,000 square feet with a 10-year lease term with frontage along 44th Street. Little Collins Australian cafe’, Mediterranean restaurant Cava and salad chain Sweetgreen are nearby tenants.
“The latest leasing activity at 10 Grand Central proves the building is positioned as an ideal location for both national and international high-profile companies looking to have a presence in New York,” Deitelzweig said.
New tenants in the building include HLTH, a conference organizer for health innovation; LIV Golf Inc., a golf investing company; Seven Bucks Productions, Mass Mutual, international news agency Agence France-Presse and weekly online news magazine, The Week.
Asking rents in the building are between $65 to $120 per square foot.
JLL’s Mitchell Konsker, Benjamin Bass, Kip Orban, Carlee Palmer, and Thomas Schwartz are leading a team handling the leasing for Marx Realty.
Marx Realty’s Craig Deitelzweig on buying office buildings, amenities to attract office workers, moreMay 6, 2022
10 Grand Central
By Adam Pincus
Craig Deitelzweig joined Marx Realty in 2017 as president and CEO, and is responsible for repositioning the existing portfolio of 67 properties as well as expanding it, with a focus on value-add office investments in three core markets: New York City, Washington D.C. and Atlanta.
Marx Realty owns commercial properties nationally, including 19 office and retail properties in New York City including 10 Grand Central, 545 Madison Avenue, 430 Park Avenue, 201 East 57th Street and others in Tribeca, the Bowery, Williamsburg, Soho, and elsewhere.
The interview has been condensed and edited. The questions have been edited to provide more clarity. This 30-minute interview is available on our YouTube channel in its entirety.
Q: What kinds of properties are you looking to buy?
It’s going to be a really wide range our range, [it] would be from like $100 million to $2 billion. So it’s a broad broad range and if it’s $100 million it would have to be a special boutique type building that just really speaks to us.
Q: Are you looking at only office buildings to purchase?
We also are looking at hotel properties to convert those to office. So we came very close to one of those deals with a lender and then the lender decided to give their borrowers some more time.
Q: What building characteristics are you looking for?
If it has all the ceiling heights and the column spans and views and location, then you’re able to [rehab it in the Marx Realty style], but there are some buildings that you just look at and it doesn’t have a prayer.
Q: What’s a property you bid on and lost?
Some of the properties we looked at and bid on were 360 Park Avenue South. That was really the last one that we liked a lot. [Boston Properties entered a joint venture with the existing owner, Empire Asset Management, in December 2021, valued at $300 million.]
Q: What kind of criticism have you heard from brokers?
Brokers were telling us [that] we’re not going to attract a good portion of the market, those conservatives — the law firms, the accounting firms, the insurance companies — and what we found was actually the complete opposite.
Q: Do the amenity investments lead to higher rents?
At 10 Grand Central on our lower floors we just got two floors back, the rents were in the $30s which is insane and we just did a deal there for $67 and we think the next one will be in the $70s. So if we hadn’t done this type of hospitality-infused experience maybe we would have gotten rents in the $50s.
Q: How much more per foot on average?
You will get at least ten dollars a square foot more by doing [hospitality-infused design]. It’s very real, it’s very worthwhile to do.
Q: Can you compete with the Plaza District towers?
We’re competing with buildings that historically were the ones that were the “club buildings,” whether it’s 667 Madison, the GM Building… we have tenants from those buildings that have come to us recently, and those are “view” buildings so they’re giving up a view of central park to be in a building that has more of an experience to offer.
Q: How much are you investing in the 10 Grand Central penthouse, and what are rents?
At 10 Grand Central we have a penthouse collection which is five floors. We leased one of them, we have a lease out on the second one and then the others will be together as a group. One of the floors is our mechanical floor which has 24-foot ceiling heights. It’s really remarkable and we’re putting all the mechanical above that and then that floor will have two terraces, one of the terraces will be made into a solarium.
So the investment is about $8 million dollars and then the rent, we’re marketing it for for $140 but we’ll probably get something closer to $120.
Seven BCW Hall of Fame awards handed outBy Peter Katz – April 28, 2022
Seven awards were presented by the Business Council of Westchester (BCW) at its 20th Hall of Fame Awards Dinner held on April 26. About 400 business and community leaders attended the event at the Glen Island Harbour Club in New Rochelle.
Marsha Gordon, the president and CEO of BCW, said, “Tonight, we celebrate innovation, which is fitting as we look to the future and to exciting new ideas.” She noted that the thee of the evening was to highlight BCW’s Westchester Innovation Network, which focuses on elevating Westchester County as a center for knowledge, innovation and economic development.
Seated from left: Craig Deitelzweig ; Elena Rivera-Cheekt; William Balter; Belinda Miles; Robert Duncan Jr. Standing from left: David Demilia; Program Co-Chair James Giangrande; Marsha Gordon; Heidi Davidson; Program Co-Chair Elizabeth Bracken-Thompson, of Thompson & Bender; J.D. Summa.
Heidi Davidson, board chairman for the BCW, told the gathering that the Hall of Fame honors have been bestowed on “a wide range of businesses, from Fortune 500 companies to budding entrepreneurs to outstanding, small, women- and minority-owned businesses.”
The Corporate Citizenship Award was given to the Cross County Shopping Center, which has been in operation for 67 years and is one of the oldest shopping malls in the country. Accepting the award was Craig Deitelzweig, president and CEO of Marx Realty.
The Small Business Success Award went to Kings Capital Construction, which was described as using innovative technology in the form of project management software to improve communication and efficiency. Accepting the award was J.D. Summa, the company’s president and CEO.
Wallauer Paint and Design Centers received the Family Business Success Award.Wallauer has been serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam since 1921. Accepting the award was Robert Duncan Jr., Wallauer’s vice president.
William Balter, principal of WBP Development LLC and Griffon Construction LLC, accepted the Entrepreneurial Business Success Award on behalf of the companies. WBP and Griffon were cited for innovations in creating affordable, mixed income and market-rate housing, along with their financing and construction practices.
The Minority Business Success Award was accepted by Elena Rivera-Cheek, founder and owner of Copy & Art, a woman-owned certified business enterprise that bills itself as a next-generation ad agency.
Dr. Belinda Miles, president of Westchester Community College (WCC), received the Women in Business Success Award. At WCC, Covid-19 led to innovative changes to learning with remote classes and the adoption of new digital tools.
Tompkins Community Bank received the Chairman’s Recognition Award for its delivery of unique financial solutions through contemporary technological advancements with a personal touch. Accepting the award was David Demilia, the bank’s president and CEO.
HLTH Signs 19,000 SF Office Lease Expansion, Renewal in Midtown ManhattanApril 19, 2022
NEW YORK CITY — HLTH, which organizes conferences and events for the healthcare industry, has signed a 19,000-square-foot office lease expansion and renewal at 10 Grand Central in Midtown Manhattan. The firm is growing its footprint from 7,000 to 19,000 square feet on the sixth and seventh floors. Marx Realty owns the 35-story building and completed a $48 million redesign and capital improvement program in 2019. JLL represented the landlord in the lease negotiations.
Leases signed in Midtown, Industrious adds Flatiron location (and other NYC real estate news)April 15, 2022
HLTH, conference organizer for the health care industry, has more than doubled its space at 10 Grand Central in Midtown Manhattan, signing a a 12,000-square-foot lease expansion and seven-year renewal at the office tower.
HLTH is expanding from 7,000 square feet to 19,000 square feet on the sixth and seventh floors. Led by Jonathan Weiner, the founder of Money 20/20 and a venture partner at Oak HC/FT, a $1 billion growth equity venture fund, HLTH relocated from 90 Park Avenue to 10 Grand Central in 2019.
Owner and developer Marx Realty said it also signed an additional 15,000 square feet of additional new leases at the property. They include:
- LIV Golf Inc.: the golf investing company signed a 5,212-square-foot, three-year lease
- Family Management Corp.: the investment advisor signed a 4,782-square-foot, five-year lease with on the 21st floor;
- Kasa Living: the real estate technology company a signed 2,327-square-foot, three-year lease on the 21st floor;
- Mediterranean restaurant CAVA, which will occupy 2,600 square feet of street-level space with frontage on the corner of 44th Street and Third Avenue.
April 12, 2022
Marx Realty, a New York-based owner, developer and manager of office, retail and multifamily property across the United States, announced that the largest conference organizer for health innovation, Hlth, has signed a 12,000-square-foot lease expansion and seven-year renewal at its 10 Grand Central office tower in Midtown Manhattan.
Hlth expands its footprint from 7,000 square feet to 19,000 square feet on the sixth and seventh floors. Marx Realty announced it has also signed an additional 15,000 square feet of additional new leases at the property.
Led by Jonathan Weiner, the founder of Money 20/20 and a venture partner at Oak HC/FT, a $1 billion growth equity venture fund, Hlth relocated from 90 Park Avenue to 10 Grand Central in 2019 on the heels of Marx Realty’s announcement of the Beaux-Arts building repositioning.
“Hlth’s significant expansion, along with the building’s brisk leasing activity, is a testament to the appeal of our game-changing hospitality-infused office design sensibility and we’re excited to welcome a remarkable collection of new tenants at 10 Grand Central,” said Craig Deitelzweig, president and CEO of Marx Realty.
Marx Realty also announced a 5,212-square-foot, three-year lease for golf investing company Liv Golf Inc. taking the entire 32nd floor, part of 10 Grand Central’s exclusive Penthouse Collection. The most recent addition at 10 Grand Central, the Penthouse Collection, was developed during the pandemic and consists of 20,000 square feet of ultra luxurious penthouse offices on floors 32 through 36. Floors 32 and 33 have been officially delivered while the rest of the collection is expected to be delivered later this year.
Additional new leases include a 4,782-square-foot, five-year lease with investment advisor Family Management Corp on the 21st floor and a 2,327-square-foot, a three-year lease for real estate technology company Kasa Living on the 21st floor. The building also welcomes Mediterranean restaurant Cava, which will occupy 2,600 square feet of street-level space with frontage on the corner of 44th Street and Third Avenue; the restaurant joins a wide-ranging number of food and retail options at street level, as job creators increasingly seek to provide a welcoming office experience for the workforce. Cava joins Little Collins Australian café as one in the array of café offerings for its tenants.
Marx Realty Signs Expansion and Extension at 10 Grand CentralApril 16, 2022
Marx Realty, a New York-based owner, developer and manager of office, retail and multifamily property across the United States, says the largest conference organizer for health innovation, HLTH, has signed a 12,000-square-foot lease expansion and 7-year renewal at the 10 Grand Central office tower in Midtown Manhattan.
HLTH expands its footprint from 7,000 square feet to 19,000 square feet on the sixth and seventh floors. Marx Realty announced they have also signed an additional 15,000 square feet of additional new leases at the property.
Led by Jonathan Weiner, the founder of Money 20/20 and a venture partner at Oak HC/FT, a $1 billion growth equity venture fund, HLTH relocated from 90 Park Avenue to 10 Grand Central in 2019 on the heels of Marx Realty’s announcement of the beaux-arts building repositioning.
The expanded new space and long-term renewal will allow the company to expand its function into a premier fintech hub for the city.
HLTH Inks Renewal, More Than Doubling its Footprint, at Marx Realty’s Hospitality-Inspired 10 Grand Central Office Tower
Marx Realty (MNPP), a New York-based owner, developer and manager of office, retail and multifamily property across the United States, announced the largest conference organizer fo health innovation, HLTH, has signed a 12,000-square-foot lease expansion and 7-year renewal at the iconic 10 Grand Central office tower in Midtown Manhattan. HLTH expands its footprint from 7,000 square feet to 19,000 square feet on the sixth and seventh floors.
Marx Realty announced they have also signed an additional 15,000 square feet of additional new leases at the property.
Led by Jonathan Weiner, the founder of Money 20/20 and a venture partner at Oak HC/FT, a $1 billion growth equity venture fund, HLTH relocated from 90 Park Avenue to 10 Grand Central in 2019 on the heels of Marx Realty’s announcement of the beaux-arts building repositioning. The expanded new space and long-term renewal will allow the company to expand its function into a premier fintech hub for the city.
“HLTH’s significant expansion, along with the building’s brisk leasing activity, is a testament to the appeal of our game-changing hospitality-infused office design sensibility and we’re excited to welcome a remarkable collection of new tenants at 10 Grand Central,” said Craig Deitelzweig, president and CEO of Marx Realty.
Marx Realty also announced a 5,212-square-foot, three-year lease for golf investing company LIV Golf Inc. taking the entire 32nd floor, part of 10 Grand Central’s exclusive Penthouse Collection. The most recent addition at 10 Grand Central, the Penthouse Collection, was developed during the pandemic and consists of 20,000 square feet of uber-luxe penthouse offices on floors 32 through 36, which offer exceptionally designed suites and an elevated aesthetic not yet seen in the market. Floors 32 and 33 have been officially delivered while the rest of the collection is expected to be delivered later this year.
Additional new leases include a 4,782-square-foot, five-year lease with investment advisor Family Management Corp on the 21st floor; and a 2,327-square-foot, a three-year lease for real estate technology company Kasa Living on the 21st floor. 10 Grand Central also welcomes Mediterranean restaurant CAVA, which will occupy 2,600 square feet of street-level space with frontage on the corner of 44th Street and Third Avenue; the restaurant joins a wide-ranging number of food and retail options at street level, as job creators increasingly seek to provide a welcoming office experience for the workforce. Cava joins Little Collins Australian café as one in the array of café offerings for its tenants.
“10 Grand Central reset the bar for hospitality-focused office design in 2019 and we are proud to have created an entirely new asset class through our signature hospitality-infused approach to office space, a strategy that is proving successful at other Marx-owned buildings including the recent repositioning of 545 Madison in New York as well as The Herald in Washington D.C. and The Department Building in Atlanta” added Deitelzweig.
Marx Realty’s $48 million redesign of the 35-story, Ely Jacques-Kahn designed 10 Grand Central was completed in 2019 and has positioned the building as one of Midtown’s most exciting office offerings, attracting tenants from both modern and traditional office buildings. Among the building’s most impressive features are the four-story entry portal boasting a soaring marquee and oversized walnut doors attended by a uniformed doorman, a sleekly styled lobby as well as a 7,500-square-foot indoor/outdoor club floor boasting a well- appointed lounge, 40-seat conference space and The Ivy Terrace. From top to bottom, the building exudes high-end hotel vibes.
10 Grand Central’s notable newcomers join an already impressive and diverse roster of tenants, including content targeting company ZEFR; weekly online news magazine The Week; communications consultant Montieth & Company; real estate investment firm Benenson Capital Partners; and, Goldman Sachs-backed Crux Informatics. High-profile tenants also include Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s production company, Seven Bucks Productions (as reported by the New York Post); insurance giant MassMutual, international news agency Agence France-Presse; UK-based sports private equity firm 23 Capital; asset management firm Everside Capital Partners; educational technology company Decoded; and, health-conscious salad chain, Sweetgreen.
The redesign was led by David Burns, principal of Studios Architecture. JLL’s Mitchell Konsker, Benjamin Bass, Kip Orban, Carlee Palmer, and Thomas Schwartz are leading a team handling the leasing for Marx Realty. The building’s asking rents range between $65 and $120 per square foot.
Manhattan commercial leasing activity rises 100% in Q1 from last yearApril 10, 2022
By Steve Cuozzo
Commercial real estate transactions have picked up recently, according to some measures, including a lease signed at the Deutsche Bank Center. By Christopher Sadowski for NY Post
Like the proverbial elephant examined by five blind men, the 460 million square-foot Manhattan office market lends itself to many different interpretations. There’s a statistic to support every perspective.
A new report from CBRE cheerfully cites a near 100% rise in year-over-year leasing activity for the first quarter of 2022. The 5.68 million square feet of transactions were up 96% over the first quarter of 2021.
Such large deals as IBM Inc. at 1 Madison Ave. (328,000 square feet), PDT Partners at 60 Columbus Circle and Celonis at 1 World Trade Center (75,000 square feet) suggest a major market rebound.
Average Midtown asking rents climbed 2% over the previous quarter. Midtown South leasing volume was up for the third straight quarter. Downtown’s quarterly absorption was positive for the first time since the third quarter of 2019.
All good news, right? But there’s a different take in JLL’s latest “Office Insight” letter. The brokerage found rising vacancies across the board, due in part to sublease additions surpassing demand.
It noted that first-quarter leasing was higher than in early 2021 but 25% below the fourth quarter.
Large new sublease availabilities “pushed vacancy up to the highest levels recorded since the onset of the pandemic at 15.2 percent.”
Neither set of data is wrong — it’s rather a matter of choosing which facet of the market to emphasize.
Meanwhile, Placer.ai, a site that tracks office building foot traffic, reports a huge 102% increase in foot traffic to Manhattan office buildings in February over the same month in 2021. But the traffic was still 46.7% under January 2020, just before the pandemic struck.
“The city is springing back to life as of the beginning of April, but it’s been slow going,” the site said.
In one of the year’s largest new subleases, Phaidon International is taking 71,239 square feet at SL Green’s 711 Third Ave. The global specialist recruitment agency will move from 622 Third Ave., where the firm had only about half as much space.
Cushman & Wakefield’s David Mainthow represented Phaidon. JLL repped the sublandlord, the Stagwell Group.
Phaidon CEO Harry Youtan said the move “is the next step of an exceptional eight years of growth in New York. It will allow us to hire and develop 200 additional staff, taking our New York team to 500 in total.”
“The space was delivered in move-in ready condition, resulting in little upfront capital investment and construction time, which offered a great solution for Phaidon’s thriving business,” said Mainthow.
The new address is a 592,772 square-foot tower one block from Grand Central Terminal. It was renovated with improvements that include new elevator cabs, large windows and a three-level parking garage.
Marx Realty’s 10 Grand Central, a 500,000 square-foot Midcentury tower at Third Avenue and East 44th Street, continues to fill up — thanks to a recent, $48 million capital improvement program and repositioning.
Of 34,000 square feet of newly signed and expanded leases, the largest was a 12,000 square-foot expansion of HLTH, a conference organizer for health innovation. The new lease, plus a renewal on space it already had, upped the firm’s footprint in the building from 7,000 to 19,000 square feet.
Marx also signed 15,000 more square feet for LIV Golf Inc, Family Management Corp and Kasa Living. On the retail front, fast-casual Mediterranean eatery CAVA is coming to 2,600 square feet of ground-floor corner space.
Marx converted more than half of 46 previously unused outdoor terraces for tenant use. Upgrades also include a new, four-story entry portal on East 44th Street with walnut doors leading into a sleek lobby, and an indoor-outdoor club floor with its own lounge, conference space and landscaped terrace.
One additional sweetener: Israeli-made “Solato” machines that let tenants make multi-flavored gelato in a matter of seconds. Realty Check can attest that the vanilla, at least, is the real deal.
About 65,000 square feet remain available — which pleases Marx CEO Craig Deitelzweig, since old tenants were paying rents far below today’s market. Asking rents at 10 Grand Central now range from $65 to $120 per square foot.