Manhattan’s Lower East Side Attracts Four New Office Tenants

Marx Realty has signed four office tenants at Lower East Side properties including the one at 161 Bowery.

Manhattan’s Lower East Side, known for its nightlife and restaurants, is attracting more office tenants.

Four new leases totaling 10,300 square feet, from creative, entertainment and tech firms, have been signed at 135 and 161 Bowery, two boutique office buildings located between Grand and Delancey streets, landlord Marx Realty, which bought the two properties in 2018, said Monday in a statement.

“Technology, advertising, media and information companies have been flocking to this vibrant neighborhood for its dynamic built-in amenities,” Craig Deitelzweig, CEO of Marx Realty, said in the statement, adding the buildings themselves also are among the “most distinctively designed” in the area with unusually high ceilings and “contemporary” office suites. “The leasing velocity here is a perfect representation of the flight to quality underway in the office sector.”

Existing tenants at the buildings include entertainment and popular culture news website UPROXX, social media firm Kik Interactive, advertising company Space 150, and multinational educational startup Brainly, Marx Realty said.

Opened in 1920 and redeveloped in 2016, 161 Bowery is a seven-story building with street-level retail and 25,000 square feet of office space. Its suites feature 12-foot ceiling heights, open floor plates, and direct fiber-optic internet connections, Marx Realty said, adding there also are in-suite cafes, exposed ceilings and oversize operable windows. 135 Bowery is a newly built, eight-story building with 23,000 square feet of space, street-level retail and offices on floors two through eight. Opened in 2016, the building includes private terraces on two of its floors.

A new Moxy Hotel is set to open steps away at 145 Bowery, Marx Realty said.

As companies seek to attract talent desiring to work in the so-called 24/7 neighborhood, telecom giant Verizon last year signed a lease to become the anchor office tenant in the mega mixed-use Essex Crossing development.

Here are the four Marx Realty leases brokered by a Cushman & Wakefield team of Remy Liebersohn and Bianca DiMauro. Asking rents range from $60 to $65 per square foot, Marx Realty said.

• Portlus, a division of U.K.-based fashion brand Threads Styling, will take 2,133 square feet on the seventh floor at 135 Bowery and was represented by Tom Kelly at Square Foot.

• JO Entertainment, operator of high-end nightclubs, signed a 1,657-square-foot lease on the eighth floor at 135 Bowery and was represented by Harrison Katzman of Savitt Partners.

• Creative firm Something Special Studios will take 3,300 square feet on the sixth floor at 161 Bowery and was represented by Eli Someck of Redwood Property Group.

• Magna Digital will take 3,300 square feet of space on the seventh floor at 161 Bowery and was represented by Jason Majlessi at Venture Commercial NYC.