[NYguy]

http://therealdeal.com/issues_articles/the-far-side/

Office developers compete for anchor tenants on Manhattan’s western edge
With only a finite number of large potential renters, the fight for office tenants on the West Side is heating up.


May 01, 2013
By Adam Pincus

Only a few times in modern Manhattan history has an entirely new office district sprung up all at once. In the 1930s, there was Rockefeller Center; the 1970s saw the World Trade Center complex; and today, developers are planning nearly 15 million square feet of new office space in the Hudson Yards area in the 30s on the Far West Side. The new projects expected to rise over the next decade include the Related Companies’ North and South towers at Hudson Yards, Extell Development’s One Hudson Yards, Brookfield Office Properties’ Manhattan West and Moinian’s 3 Hudson Boulevard, as well as Sherwood Equities’ 447 10th Avenue and Alloy Development’s 450 Hudson Park Boulevard.

But before starting construction on these new towers, developers must first land an anchor tenant willing to take at least 400,000 square feet of space. With only a finite number of large potential renters, the competition for office tenants is heating up, as some of the city’s top commercial leasing brokers and developers battle each other with slick marketing campaigns and — of course — behind-the-scenes jabs at rival projects.

In 2011, fashion manufacturer Coach signed on to be an anchor tenant of Related’s South Tower. But Coach was already located a few blocks away, in a building directly in the path of Hudson Yards bulldozers. For many of the other big companies whose names are being kicked around as possible anchor tenants, a move to the Far West Side would represent a significant geographic shift from Midtown or Downtown.

There are currently 10 to 20 companies said to be on the hunt for large chunks of Manhattan office space, brokers said. These include media companies Time Warner, Sony, CBS and News Corp.; law firms White & Case and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; advertising firm GroupM; financial giant Credit Suisse; and fashion house Ralph Lauren.

Brokers for the new Hudson Yards–area towers are fighting to lure these tenants, but their efforts could be in vain if companies decide to stay in their current locations, or move to existing office towers instead. Despite these challenges, Hudson Yards so far appears to be beating the odds. Last month, Related snagged two more tenants for the South Tower: French cosmetics maker L’Oreal and software firm SAP.

447 10th Avenue
Developer: Sherwood Equities

Size: 2.5 million square feet
Expected completion date: TBD
Leasing agent: None

Midtown-based Sherwood Equities, headed by CEO Jeffrey Katz, owns three parcels in the Hudson Yards area. But much like Alloy, it is less well-known than most of the other Far West Side developers.

Sherwood is planning an office tower at 447 10th Avenue at 34th Street on a site it’s owned since 1986. (Sherwood’s two smaller sites in the district will likely become residential or mixed-use towers.)

But the firm is in no hurry to start construction on the massive office project, Nelson said, and Sherwood is not competing as fiercely for tenants as some of the other developers in the area.

“We are not being as aggressive as the others,” Nelson said. With rents in the untested neighborhood still relatively low, the firm feels that “it does not make sense to fight tooth and nail.”

He said he expects rents in the area to rise dramatically once tenants start moving in to other new buildings.

Sherwood is nonetheless on the lookout for tenants in need of large chunks of space. Sources said the firm responded to an inquiry from Time Warner about potentially taking space at 447 10th.

Nelson declined to comment on Time Warner specifically, but confirmed that Sherwood would indeed respond “if a tenant came along that needed 2 million square feet.”