Savills Studley arranged two non-profit leases totaling 17,000 s/f in separate transactions across Manhattan.
The National Development Council (NDC) signed a 15-year, 11,741 s/f lease at One Battery Park Plaza for its corporate headquarters location.
NDC completed its move in April from a 10,045 s/f space at 708 Third Avenue in Midtown.
Savills Studley Executive Vice President Daniel Horowitz, Executive Managing Director Jeffrey Peck and Managing Director Christopher Foerch represented the tenant in the long-term transaction. The landlord, Rudin Management Company, was represented by Kevin Daly in-house.
According to Foerch, NDC has maintained office locations in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood for nearly four decades and initially targeted their search within the Grand Central submarket.
After Savills Studley suggested touring downtown alternatives, the nonprofit quickly realized, however, that relocating to lower Manhattan would dramatically increase its ability to reinvest capital into its mission. “Relocating to One Battery provides The National Development Council a dramatically improved space at a nearly 20 percent cost-savings. Not only will the non-profit be located in a class A environment… the move allows the organization to continue its mission of reinvesting money in low-income communities across the country,” said Foerch.
Also relocating is Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB), which signed a 15-year, 5,468 s/f lease at 360 Lexington Avenue, relocating from 645 Madison Avenue to the newly built space.
The new leasing transaction for RPB aligns with the company’s strategy to increase efficiencies and reinvest capital back to its mission of providing major eye research funding to scientific institutions in the U.S.
According to Foerch, the relocation will cut the organization’s costs by nearly 40 percent.
“The general trend of organizations looking to do more with less is here to stay. Nonprofits are especially creative in finding new ways to ensure overhead costs, such as office space, are kept at a minimum so as to ensure the most possible resources are funneled to achieving the business goals,” Foerch said.
