Daniel Geiger

On Park Avenue, office tenants pay lofty rents to be in Midtown’s most exclusive office district. A move to east to Third Avenue generally brings a discount, but also a significant loss of prestige. 

Marx Realty has sought to flip that script at the 36-story, 1931-vintage office building it owns at the corner of East 44th Street and Third Avenue.

Once known as 708 Third Ave., the company rebranded the property under the new moniker 10 Grand Central last year and recently finished a multi-million dollar renovation of the building. 

The upgrades included the installation of hotel-like amenities such as a doorman-staffed entrance, a concierge in the building’s refurbished lobby, a lounge on the 7th floor with an outdoor terrace and even a signature scent that wafts through its common areas along with a soundtrack. 

Rental rates that last year were in the $40s per square foot have now doubled and even tripled for some of the 430,000 square foot building’s best spaces.

Crux Informatics, for instance, just signed a deal to leave the Seagram Building, one of Park Avenue’s most sought-after addresses, and take 10 Grand Central’s entire 18th floor. Asking rents were $85 per square foot for the roughly 18,000 square-foot space

“This building embraces everything you love about a hotel and that’s something that is resonating with tenants,” said Craig Deitelzweig, Marx Realty’s president and CEO, who joined the firm two years ago and has been focused on re-imagining its assets in the city and around the country. “If you’re coming from Park Avenue, this building is more than equivalent, in many ways it’s better.”

Among the other attributes that Deitelzweig pointed to are the building’s abundant outdoor spaces: its numerous setbacks create 44 terraces for tenants. 

Next up, Marx Realty is looking to fill 10 Grand Central’s top 5 floors, which it has branded the “penthouse collection,” that features luxurious office installations, outdoor spaces and soaring views, including a close up vista of the nearby Chrysler Building. 

A duplex penthouse on the topmost floors, 35 and 36, will feature 20 foot ceilings, a hardwood staircase, library and bar. For now, the asking rent is $130 per square foot for those 2 levels, but Deitelzweig has toyed with the idea of bumping up the price because of interest it has received. 

“We might make it $150,” he said. 

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