By Daniel Geiger
Greystone, a hedge fund and investment management company, has renewed its roughly 25,000 s/f lease at the high end midtown office building Carnegie Hall Tower.
The firm is one of the original tenants in the building, which was built by the Elghanayan brothers in the late 1980s, and occupies the 60-story tower’s penthouse, a space that features sweeping views of Central Park.
Greystone’s lease wasn’t set to expire until 2013, but the company, having grown piecemeal in the 540,000 s/f building in recent years, was eager to renew early in order to consolidate its space, according to sources.
The firm is taking the entire 11th and 60th floors and part of 54 in the deal. Prior to the transaction, the company had been spread across five floors, the result of years of taking small pockets of space for growth as they opened in the building, which is known as a trophy midtown property and usually boasts tight vacancy rates. The renewal allowed Greystone to give up space it had on the 9th and 14th floors and consolidate its operations on 11 while also renewing the space it has on 54 and 60. The term of the renewal is for ten years beyond the upcoming 2013 expiration.
Rents at the property, located at 152 West 57th Street, vary widely. Rates for the lower floors are as low as the $60s per s/f according to people familiar with the building, but rents for tower floors reach well into the triple figures. Once source estimated that asking rents for the top floor of the building would be about $150 per s/f, making it one of the most expensive spaces in the city. Because Greystone has space both high and low in the building, its rents when blended together are lower, around $100 per s/f in the renewal deal sources said.
TF Cornerstone, a company controlled by Tom and Fred Elghanayan, owns Carnegie Hall Tower. Originally the building was held by Rockrose Development, a real estate firm that was owned by Tom and Fred in partnership with their older brother, Henry Elghanayan. In 2009, Fred and Tom split off from Henry and Rockrose’s assets were partitioned among the three. Fred and Tom subsequently started TF Cornerstone.
A leasing team from the real estate services firm Newmark Knight Frank led by company executives Billy Cohen and Michael Leon handle leasing at Carnegie Hall Tower in partnership with Chip Sealy, an executive at TF Cornerstone who oversees the company’s portfolio of space. None could be reached for comment.
