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51 Astor Place aka the IBM Watson Building.
Prices start from more than $7 million for a two-bedroom, half-floor apartment, while the full-floor units on the 30th and 31st floors will be more expensive, naturally. The penthouse, which takes up the whole 32nd floor plus a roodtop deck, will be "in the twenties."
The new location will house St. John’s School of Risk Management, a key division of the University’s Peter J. Tobin College of Business and a global leader in risk and insurance education and training.
The School of Risk Management contains the Kathryn & Shelby Cullom Davis Library, which comprises the world’s largest collection of risk and insurance literature, policies, and related documents, and serves as a center for study and research for students of risk management, insurance, and actuarial science around the world.
The location will also be home to The Language Connection, St. John’s intensive English language institute, and to continuing professional education and other academic programs.
EVG readers shared their thoughts last June on what kind of businesses they thought would lease these retail spaces. Popular answers included bank branch, bank and bank branch.
Claren Road Asset Management, a credit-focused money manager that is a subsidiary of private equity giant the Carlyle Group, will take the top floor of Edward Minskoff’s 51 Astor Place, The Real Deal has learned. The 25,401-square-foot space was asking a rent of $118 per square foot, a record for Midtown South. Sources familiar with the transaction said that it was likely the priciest per-square-foot deal struck in the neighborhood.
Located on the east side of 4th Avenue between East 9th and East 10th Streets, this six story mixed-use building will be delivered vacant. This is an excellent condominium conversion opportunity or a live-investment given its centrally located between the East Village and Greenwich Village. Although the current C of O is a mix of office and art studio space, the building could be converted to residential as-of-right. The building is across the street from Facebook’s new office at 770 Broadway and one block from 51 Astor Place which will soon be the headquarters of IBM Watson and 1stdibs.
"My gut feeling was that when it was finished, the tenants would come," said Mr. Minskoff. "And that's exactly what happened."
Mr. Minksoff's tower could still face leasing challenges if his deals in the pipeline aren't signed. But if he fills the building at high rents as he predicts, his success could spur other developers to build office properties in the area or to buy older buildings and upgrade them.
"The building and tenant roster have increased the real estate value in the surrounding area." said Paul N. Glickman, vice chairman at Jones Lang LaSalle, the leasing agent for 51 Astor.
IBM moved quickly to secure its spot in the 12-story tower by Astor Square, negotiating the details of the lease in just four days, said Edward Minskoff, the building's developer. "Twitter's a wonderful company and I would love to have been able to do both deals," Mr. Minskoff said.
What's this? Jeff Koons balloon rabbit going up @ 51 Astor place: 6,600 pounds of stainless steel #artmarket pic.twitter.com/r1LBKmJjwh
— katya kazakina (@artdetective) January 14, 2014
IBM says it plans to spend over $1 billion on the new unit, which already includes over 2,000 employees, in the next several years, out of the new 51 Astor Place. Mike Rhodin will head up the group, which the company hopes will help it reach a $20 billion revenue projection for its big data and analytics services by 2015.
The announcement of the new unit and its headquarters in ‘Silicon Alley’ is for a simple reason: to find some positive momentum for IBM within CEO Ginni Rometty’s 2015 roadmap, while showing techies in New York that IBM can be cool, the company hopes.
.@evgrieve Wait...what? I thought @KenJennings was moving in. This is completely different.
— 51 Astor Place (@51deathstar) January 9, 2014
Situated in an area that is home to more than 50,000 college students, the new location will house St. John’s School of Risk Management, a key division of the University’s Peter J. Tobin College of Business and a global leader in risk and insurance education and training.
The School of Risk Management contains the Kathryn & Shelby Cullom Davis Library, which comprises the world’s largest collection of risk and insurance literature, policies, and related documents, and serves as a center for study and research for students of risk management, insurance, and actuarial science around the world.
The location will also be home to The Language Connection, St. John’s intensive English language institute, and to continuing professional education and other academic programs.
“By January 30 we’ll be 100 percent leased there, and that’s all I’ll say,” he told The Commercial Observer today, declining to give any additional details.